


You Know Him and Have Seen Him

by BrighteyedJill



Series: In My Master's House 'Verse [9]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Slavery, Case Fic, Guns, Humiliation, M/M, Master/Slave, Mildly Dubious Consent, Past Drug Use, Rope Bondage, Threats of Violence, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-08
Updated: 2014-01-11
Packaged: 2018-01-08 01:30:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1126813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrighteyedJill/pseuds/BrighteyedJill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After John's disappearance, Sherlock races to solve a mystery, while Lestrade balances his responsibilities and his conscience.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Content advisory:** present day slave AU, so slavery and inherent consent issues therein, threat of violence (including sexual violence), show-level violence and crime, minor character death(s), suicide
> 
>  **Notes:** Thanks to eldritchhobbit, jaune_chat, blue_eyed_1987, and izzie7 for their invaluable editing/cheerleading/Brit-picking. Remaining cock-ups are all mine. 
> 
> Also, thank you everyone for your patience after that last cliff-hanger. I am evil.

**Previously, on _In My Master’s House_**

_Sherlock and John discovered that someone planned to assassinate the Chinese ambassador at the grand banquet Lord Mycroft was hosting. Sherlock neutralized one assassin, but while he was ensuring the ambassador’s safety, John spotted a sniper stalking Sherlock, and shot him in defence of his master. John was hauled off to a discipline cell for shooting a free man, who turned out to be Colonel Moran. Meanwhile, Lestrade foiled a cat burglar’s attempt to steal information from Lord Mycroft’s rooms. After refereeing an argument between the Holmes brothers, Lestrade went to check on John, only to find the guards dead and John’s cell empty._  
\------

 

The sun flashed in John’s eyes, too bright off the pale sand. He raised a hand to shade his face. Across the scrubby ground, he made out the unmistakable silhouette of his master, standing too tall at the top of a rise. “Sherlock, get down!” he shouted. He tried to run, but his boots sank into the sand; he’d never seen sand so deep, not here. Still, if Sherlock had come this way, John could, too. “Get under cover!”

Sherlock turned to him, elegant in his evening formal wear, brow furrowed in irritation. 

“Down!”

A shot echoed across the empty desert. Sherlock looked down as a red patch bloomed against the right shoulder of his bright white shirt. He touched a finger to the growing stain, then stared at it as if examining the evidence. 

“Get down!”

Another shot pierced the bright afternoon. Sherlock’s leg buckled under him, and he fell to his knees. 

John struggled through sand that pulled at his feet, until he reached the place where Sherlock lay. Blood soaked his shirt and trousers. 

“Sherlock. Hang on.” John dropped to his knees and pressed the heel of his hand against Sherlock’s shoulder to stem the flow of blood. “Just hang on.” 

Sherlock stared up at him with wide, pale eyes. “You couldn’t protect me.”

“I’m sorry. Please, just stay with me.” John looked up to scan the horizon: no movement, no hope of rescue.

Sherlock reached up to clutch feebly at John’s hand. “You couldn’t even protect yourself.”

John looked down to see blood seeping through his Army uniform: right shoulder, left thigh. 

“It hurts.” Sherlock’s hand clamped down on John’s.

A stabbing pain robbed John of his breath. His eyes snapped open. 

Agony lanced through his back—not his shoulder or his leg—and he closed his eyes against the pain. The desert was a dream—just another dream. He’d wake up at home, in his quarters in the slave wing, and he’d be fine. He forced his eyes open again and squinted at the unfamiliar angle: he lay on his belly in a large bed, with a view of dark walls, a curtained window, and a framed periodic table of elements.

A warm hand dropped onto his shoulder, just above the scar. A man’s soft voice floated through his groggy haze. “There, now. Stop fussing, or you’ll aggravate the incision site.”

As if on cue, pain flared low on John’s back, near the base of his spine. 

John craned his neck to see the speaker, but only caught sight of a grey suit. He tried to turn over, but stopped when the pain flared again. At least he’d been dressed: he could feel trousers against his bare skin. But as he turned his head to take stock of the room, he realized he missed the feel of smooth leather against his throat. His neck was bare, his collar gone.

The hand slid further down his back, skating back and forth across his spine. “You’re lucky I went to the trouble of getting a proper surgeon to take the chip out.” The man’s voice sounded vaguely familiar: gentle, with a soft Irish lilt. “I could have done it myself with a kitchen knife, but I’m certain you wouldn’t have been able to walk afterwards.”

John tried to speak, but found his throat too dry. He swallowed hard and tried again. “Where’s my collar?”

“That’s your question? Oh, pet. You a really are a treasure.” The man moved to the head of the bed, into John’s line of sight. “Hi,” Jim said. “We need to talk.”  
\--

 

Lestrade stumbled back against the cold stone wall. He kept his hands up and his eyes down, hoping to show himself to be no threat. He could see the gun still pointed at him, inches from his face, as more guards poured into the small space. 

“Move.” Lord Sherlock’s voice came from the end of the corridor, and a knot of Imperial guards scattered out of his path. The man holding his gun on Lestrade didn’t waver. 

Lord Sherlock strode into the packed confines of the dungeon-cum-crime scene, with Mycroft hard on his heels. Mycroft’s eyes went first to where Lestrade stood backed against a wall, doubtless taking in every detail of the scene: Lestrade’s split lip, the bruise on his cheek, the reddened knuckles of the guard who held the gun, and of course, the two dead soldiers on the floor.

“Lower your weapon, Lieutenant,” Mycroft said.

“Sir, the prisoner’s escaped.” The soldier kept his eyes on Lestrade as he answered. “And this one helped him do it. They killed two of my men.”

“Your weapon,” Mycroft repeated in the same unruffled, inexorable tone.

The soldier slowly lowered his sidearm, but Lestrade noted he kept his finger on the trigger. 

“Get out,” Lord Sherlock snapped at the soldiers who stood watching. “I need to examine the scene.”

The lieutenant turned to Mycroft and swept a hand towards the bodies and Lestrade. “My lord, I can’t—“

“Do as he says.” Mycroft stepped forward to address the gathered soldiers. “No one is to disturb us. Lieutenant, you may assist my security staff in sealing the perimeter of the estate.”

“But sir—“

Mycroft merely inclined his head, and the soldier subsided. 

“Yes, sir.” The line of red-coated Imperial soldiers filed out, and the lieutenant gave Lestrade one last look before closing the door behind him. 

Mycroft materialized at Lestrade’s side. “Are you alright?” He reached out to ghost his fingers down Lestrade’s temple.

“I’m fine, sir.” Lestrade ducked his head to remove the distraction of his injuries. The guard had stopped hitting him when he’d realized Lestrade hadn’t been resisting; the hurts were superficial. “It’s not important.” 

“Where’s John?” Lord Sherlock demanded.

Mycroft turned to him and raised an eyebrow. “You ask as if you think I’d know.”

“This is your little circus, Mycroft. There’s very little you don’t know about what goes on under this roof. Stop prevaricating and tell me what you’ve done with him.”

“I’ve done nothing to John.”

Lestrade stepped over stray drops of blood to examine the door to John’s cell. “John wouldn’t have killed these men,” he said. “I don’t think he broke out on his own.”

“Of course he didn’t. It’s obvious. Though not to your Imperial peons, apparently.” Lord Sherlock crouched by one of the bodies and leaned in to examine the gunshot wound. “It was meant to look like he killed these guards and escaped.”

“Why go to that trouble? He’s accused of shooting a lord,” Lestrade said. He traced the walls of the cell with his eyes, imagining the terror of any condemned slave trapped inside. “He was probably going to be executed anyway.”

“No one is executing John,” Lord Sherlock snapped. “No, if he’s gone, it’s much more difficult to prove his innocence. Therefore, the kidnapper is someone who wanted John to be assumed guilty.” He sprang to his feet, darted to the guard station’s small desk, and began rifling through the papers there.

“Who would benefit from framing John?” Lestrade asked. 

Lord Sherlock whirled to face Mycroft. “Who is Moriarty?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you know what he’s capable of, yes.” Lord Sherlock abandoned his search of the desk to stand nose-to-nose with his brother. “How long have you known the Chinese ambassador was reporting to him?”

Mycroft let loose a small sigh, but he didn’t argue with Lord Sherlock’s deduction. “Six months. We notified the Chinese Emperor last month.”

Lord Sherlock nodded. “So the plan was a joint one.” 

“Of course. I’d hardly be so foolish as to endorse the alternative.”

“I’ve yet to find a limit to your foolishness, brother dear.”

“What plan?” Lestrade broke in, before the discussion could deteriorate into name-calling.

“Assassinate the Chinese ambassador, obviously.” Lord Sherlock turned to gesture in Lestrade’s direction. “That’s what last night’s soiree was meant to accomplish. You loosen Moriarty’s hold and do the Chinese Empire a favour. Of course, it couldn’t be revealed that a top diplomat had been compromised, so they couldn’t be seen to bear any responsibility for the death.” 

Mycroft inclined his head fractionally, which, coming from him, may as well have been a full confession.

“And when he started to show signs of disloyalty—signs that he might be willing to betray Moriarty, it was too late to negotiate. If you allowed him to defect, you might have gained important knowledge about Moriarty, but the Empire would have breached the trust of the Chinese intelligence community.”

“It’s a delicate relationship.”

Lestrade’s mind raced to keep up with the brothers’ exchange of information. “You arranged for a man—a man who was trying to leave Moriarty’s employ—to be killed.” Lestrade could see it now: the ambassador’s increasing desperation, the unusual extension of his stay, the erratic behaviour of his slaves. “Under your own roof.”

“I’ve ordered the deaths of many men,” Mycroft said softly. “My duties as a commander require—“

“This is different.” Lestrade remembered those commands, remembered Mycroft’s restless nights after. “You know it’s different.”

“The assassination of a high-profile diplomat like this wouldn’t have gone unanswered.” Lord Sherlock ignored Lestrade and forged on: pacing, with his hands steepled under his chin, firing off deductions as he made them. “No, someone suitably ranked would have to take the blame. You would have been the lord who allowed an ambassador to be murdered in his home.”

“But the Empire would have struck a crippling blow against the spies and traitors who plague us.”

“As the ostensibly responsible party, you would have to be punished, of course,” Lord Sherlock said.

“Naturally.”

Lord Sherlock stopped his pacing to lean towards Mycroft and narrow his eyes, as if he could gut Mycroft’s words naked and pull out their insides to find what they attempted to conceal. “You can’t be stripped of your hereditary title, and the Empress wouldn’t imprison her favourite lapdog. But your other titles—your responsibility to govern, you’d be willing to give up.”

“Yes.”

“Neat little plan. Free yourself of the scrutiny of the public eye without giving up any real power. You’d have gone on spinning your web behind the scenes, just as you’ve wanted for years. Your scheme realized for the negligible price of a few lives.”

“It was for the good of the Empire.” Mycroft stood tall, shoulders soldier-straight. “The Empresses’ will must be done.”

“Long may it be so,” Lord Sherlock sneered.

“You arrogant, entitled--” Lestrade bit off any name he might have called his master. “You can’t sell your responsibility. You’ve got the life you’ve got. Do you think whoever the Empress replaced you with would govern half as well? Would they see war coming five years away? Would they keep peace between the warring nobility in Westminster? Would they treat their slaves as you do?”

“I’ve toiled for the Empire for thirty years. It’s my right—“

“Some of us can’t lay down our burden.” Lestrade reached out to touch Mycroft’s arm, but thought better of such an impertinent gesture, and clenched his fist at his side instead. “I didn’t ask for my position any more than you did yours, but I will do what I’m bid with honour until the Empire releases me. I won’t run from my duty.”

Mycroft lifted his chin. “It sounds like you’re lecturing me on my responsibilities—“

“Well someone must!” 

“Oh.” Lord Sherlock lowered himself to a crouch inside John’s empty cell and pressed his fingers against the wall. “You suspected Moriarty was on to you, that he’d try to stop you. Bad for Sino-British relations, but personally inconvenient as well. When you called me to investigate, you knew Moriarty’s people had infiltrated the house, that the ambassador was trying to send messages. That’s what you wanted me to work out.”

“Moriarty had agents in the house?” Lestrade asked.

“Of course he did. He wanted to protect his investment.” Lord Sherlock pushed to his feet and addressed Mycroft. “Do you know who it was? There could have been more than one agent.”

“Moriarty likes games, Sherlock. The only way to draw him out is to play with him.”

“So my investigation was merely a distraction: a chess match to keep Moriarty from foiling your plans. You egged him on, hounding the ambassador so he’d have to contact his employer. The death of the ambassador’s son. The gunmen in the woods. The code.”

“John’s assailant.” The facts slotted themselves into place in Lestrade’s head, leaving conveniently-shaped gaps that matched some suspicions he’d been holding onto.

“What?” Lord Sherlock’s eyes snapped to Lestrade.

“John was attacked last night, before you came to free him. He said someone threatened him. Tried to strangle him.” John had related the event with such stoicism that Lestrade hadn’t appreciated the extent of the danger. He should have given the matter more attention. 

“You knew about this?” Lord Sherlock asked. Mycroft nodded. 

Another suspicion found a matching gap in Lestrade’s arrangement of clues. “It’s not just an agent, is it? Moriarty was here. Might still be here.”

“I knew if we played his game—“

“If _I_ played his game,” Lord Sherlock corrected.

“Yes.” Mycroft offered a shallow nod. “I knew he’d come.”

“You didn’t think that might be relevant information to share?” Sherlock snapped.

“I trusted you could deduce all the relevant data.”

“You’re saying Moriarty himself was here, but you don’t know who he is?” Lestrade asked.

“Not precisely.” Mycroft didn’t meet his eyes.

“And you let him run free, knowing what could happen?” Lestrade remembered all the new faces around the estate in the past weeks, with access to everything he cared about. Despite what Mycroft believed, Moriarty could have reached anyone in the house, hurt anyone, if it would have aided his game against Sherlock. He still might do.

“I had everything under control.”

“Is this control?” Lestrade swept a hand towards the bodies on the floor, in their cooling puddles of blood. Mycroft had weighed all those risks Lestrade had just been imagining and judged them to be within acceptable parameters. He’d always built all possible outcomes into these scenarios. “What about these soldiers? Or Soo Lin? What about John?”

“I knew there were risks.”

“You don’t know. You don’t understand—you can’t.” Lestrade’s hands clenched into fists at his sides, but as he breathed in, something gave way inside of him, and all the tension drained from his body. “But that’s your decision to make, isn’t it?” His master had the right to make any choice he wished, but Lestrade had accepted that, because he’d come to believe that Mycroft was ultimately an honourable man. No one tread the line between secrecy and necessity like him. His faith in Mycroft’s abilities had blinded him: always, before, Mycroft had seen the way clear long before Lestrade had grasped all the pieces of the puzzle. He had trusted that, no matter how suspect Mycroft’s actions seemed, a fully justified reason for them had to exist. But Lestrade had judged wrongly; his illusion that he still worked, in some small way, for justice and the law couldn’t be made to fit with this arrangement of facts. His service to Mycroft was just service, no more or less honourable than the use of any object doing its part in utter ignorance of its master’s purpose.

Without knowing how it got there, Lestrade became aware of his hand resting on his collar. Mycroft watched him silently. Lestrade reached to the buckle in the back. “I promised you once—“

“I remember,” Mycroft said, standing very still.

Lestrade released the clasp. The metal click sounded too loud in the dead silence of the stone room. The soft leather and warm silver slid away, leaving Lestrade’s neck bare.

Lestrade extended the collar. Lord Mycroft accepted it wordlessly.

“Lestrade, come with me,” Lord Sherlock called from the doorway. “There’s work to be done.”

“Yes, sir.” Lestrade followed, but spared a look back to his abandoned collar, which still held Lord Mycroft’s gaze.  
\--

 

Lord Sherlock was already bounding up the narrow staircase when Lestrade caught him up. Two Imperial soldiers tried to stop him in the kitchen, but Lord Sherlock brushed them off with a crisp, “Not now.”

Lestrade followed him outside into the pale dawn light of the courtyard. Three of Mycroft’s blue-uniformed guards huddled on the opposite side, talking in low voices. They snapped to attention when they saw Lord Sherlock approach. 

“You.” Lord Sherlock pointed at the nearest guard, a short woman with gunmetal grey hair done up in a neat bun. “How many vehicles have left the grounds since the entertainment started?”

Wisely, she did not question Lord Sherlock’s reason for asking. Anyone who spent a significant amount of time in Lord Mycroft’s service learned to be both competent at her work and unfazed by unusual requests. “Twenty at least, most in the past half hour, plus emergency services.”

“I’ll need a list: vehicle make and model, the owner, how many passengers—be sure to include slaves in that count, and any unusual details.”

One of the other guards—Patel, Lestrade remembered, who’d been on duty only a month—gaped at Lord Sherlock. “Sir, we can’t possibly—“

“Come on, missie.” The first guard grabbed Patel by the arm and pulled her away. “We’ll start with the chauffeurs.”

“You.” Lord Sherlock pointed at the last guard as she followed her comrades. She froze. “Cigarettes, now.”

Wide-eyed, she handed over a half-full pack and a lighter before scuttling off. 

Lord Sherlock ripped a fag from the pack. He flicked the lighter three times with no result before Lestrade snatched it out of his shaking hands. The flame made Lord Sherlock’s pale skin glow orange as he leaned in with his cigarette. He slumped back against the wall and exhaled smoke. His eyes drifted closed, and he took another long drag before holding the pack out to Lestrade.

Lestrade accepted a cigarette, lit up, and enjoyed a harsh lungful of smoke, his first in years. It made his eyes water. 

Lord Sherlock stared at the lit end of his cigarette. “Right under my nose all this time, and I didn’t see it. _I_ didn’t see it.”

“That was Moriarty’s plan.” Lestrade didn’t mention that he hadn’t realized it either, despite the clues of his master’s strange behaviour. Lord Sherlock would take no comfort in the failures of idiots.

“I should have been better. Shouldn’t have let him get away.”

“Moriarty could still be here,” Lestrade pointed out. If he’d been creeping around for weeks, he wouldn’t let a botched assassination stop him. “I doubt he’ll give up now.”

“Of course not. But he’s unlikely to remain here. He didn’t get the evidence of Mycroft’s involvement, and in any case, the Chinese ambassador is still inconveniently alive. Having been thwarted here, he’ll move on to a new tactic. He’s certain to have contingency plans.”

“Did the Chinese ambassador have anything to say about Moriarty’s identity?”

“Mycroft’s people are working on him now.” Lord Sherlock exhaled a lungful of smoke. “They’re experts.”

“Right.” Lestrade tried not to dwell on what expert techniques Lord Mycroft’s people might be using. The tobacco had already started to make him queasy. “And the rest of the circus troupe?”

“Under guard.”

“One of them might know who Moriarty really is.” Lestrade understood firsthand how often free people underestimated the slaves around them.

“So far down the chain of command, he’d hardly take that risk.”

“But it’s possible that—“

“It doesn’t _matter_!” Lord Sherlock shoved off the wall and whirled to face Lestrade. “He has John! He took him, and now he has him. I need him back. He can’t...” Lord Sherlock slowed his breath. “No, you’re right. If we can discover Moriarty’s identity, we may find a clue as to his whereabouts. Find Moriarty, find John.” He dropped the butt of his cigarette and ground it into the stone with his heel. “The first twenty-four hours of a missing persons case are crucial. We’ll need a list of everyone who’s departed since the banquet. Concentrate on those who’ve been in the house for more than three days.” He strode off across the courtyard towards the gardens.

Lestrade hurried after him. “Where are you going?”

“To work, Lestrade.” Lord Sherlock waved him away. “Go.”  
\--

 

“Here.” A plain black collar appeared on top of a pile of papers. “You’ll need this.”

Lestrade looked up from his desk to find Anthea slotted into the narrow open space inside the door of his cramped office. Her hands flew over the keys of her Blackberry. 

“Thank you.” Lestrade watched her ignore him for a moment before he had to ask, “Did you know?”

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to.” Anthea continued typing.

“He didn’t tell me.” Lestrade rubbed a hand over his bare neck. “Not a word.”

“I’ve been in his service longer than you have.”

Lestrade nodded. He remembered, when he’d first met Anthea, how sure she’d seemed of herself and of Lord Mycroft. She’d convinced him to take the leap, too. “He trusts you.”

“Don’t be obtuse, Greg.” Anthea momentarily wrested her eyes from her phone to deliver a withering glare. “You know he trusts you, too. This plan means more to him than any other project I’ve ever been privy to.”

“Does that make it alright to do anything he likes?” Lestrade tugged a hand through his hair, remembering the bodies in the basement. “He was willing to sacrifice John.”

“Of course he was. He’d have sacrificed everyone under his command to get what he wanted.”

“Freedom from his responsibilities.” Lestrade clenched his jaw hard to hold back the flood of censure he had no right to offer. 

“Uh, no, Greg.” Anthea stopped typing. She waited while Lestrade stared at her. At last she rolled her eyes. “You are... _impossible_.”

Lestrade let out a deep breath and reminded himself not to take out his anger on the messenger. “Listen, Anthea—“

Lestrade’s attempt at diplomacy was interrupted by the arrival of Lord Sherlock, who managed to sweep dramatically into a space no larger than a cupboard. “Have you got that inventory? I need it.”

“Still working on the rest of the house, but personal slaves are all accounted for except one.” Lestrade handed Lord Sherlock the hand-written inventory. “Jim’s missing.”

“He’s probably not actually missing,” Anthea volunteered from her besieged position in the corner. “I suspect he went with Colonel Moran.”

“Why would he do that?” Lestrade asked.

“Mycroft sold him.” Lord Sherlock waved his hand to dismiss the matter. “What else have you found?” 

“Sold him,” Lestrade echoed. “Jim’s meant to be under my supervision. Why wasn’t I notified?”

“He’s been selling off properly discretely for months.” Lord Sherlock produced a list of his own, neatly typed on family letterhead, most likely a document of Lord Mycroft’s. “Human property, mostly. Some of his other livestock as well. Did you know he owned three racing horses?”

“Why?” Lestrade thought back to the contracts he’d seen on Lord Mycroft’s desk. There could have been a good reason his master didn’t want him examining them too closely. 

“Presumably to have something to discuss with the princess,” Lord Sherlock said. “I can’t imagine he’d waddle over to Ascot for-- ” 

“No,” Lestrade broke in. “Why sell off slaves?”

“Not debt. Could be unexpected expense, but he has more than enough cash on hand to deal with surprises before liquidating assets. And in any case, slaves are among the least valuable commodities at his disposal. So why—“ Lord Sherlock clasped his hands together. “Oh, sentiment.”

“He’s a good man,” Anthea snapped.

“Is he?” Lord Sherlock whirled towards her. “Go on, Lestrade hasn’t worked it out.”

Anthea glared at Lord Sherlock before addressing Lestrade. “If the Empress strips him of titles, some of his property might be redistributed or sold at auction.” 

“I see.” Lestrade nodded slowly. “He had more control over where they were sent.”

“He’ll get a better price if he sells now,” Lord Sherlock said with a disdainful sniff.

“It’s not just that,” Anthea argued.

“No.” Lestrade had heard stories of slaves sold cheaply at auction: few ended happily. “The more they’re sold for, the better they’ll be treated.”

“Was that your experience with Milverston?” Lord Sherlock asked.

“That’s a mistake Lord Mycroft won’t make again,” Anthea said quietly.

“No,” Lestrade agreed. “Lord Mycroft only makes a mistake once.” He couldn’t say as much for himself.

“Whatever his reasons, he’s been selling slaves.” Lord Sherlock waved a hand impatiently. “Who else, aside from Jim?” He addressed his question to Anthea.

“That’s all for personal slaves now, though he’s made inquiries about others. A dozen from the estate, all sold this month, contracts ready to go on a dozen more.”

“I’ll need a list.”  
\--

 

John pressed his ear to the door. His back twinged, reminding him of the healing stitches, but he held still, listening. He could hear low voices—more than one, but couldn’t make out the words. No way to know what awaited him beyond the room, but judging from the reception he’d got from Jim Moriarty, it wasn’t likely to be friendly. 

At least his captors seemed neglectful, aside from Moriarty himself, who had treated John to a lengthy discussion. If given the choice, John would prefer to avoid another of those. 

At least neglect would allow John to explore his prison. He could be anywhere in the world; he couldn’t know how long they’d kept him unconscious, but by his stubble he’d guess 24 hours. He stepped away from the door and turned his attention to his civilized prison. 

“Fine,” John muttered to the empty room. “What would Sherlock do, if he were here? Probably walk out there and demand to be released. Right, no. What would he suggest?”

He could hear Sherlock’s posh tones, perfectly. _”You’ve seen me apply my method often enough, John. Start with the facts.”_

“Of course.” If he knew where Moriarty had taken him, he’d be better able to plan a method of escape. 

A flat or a house, by the layout, but where? Whose? The fair-sized room was in good repair. The eccentric decorating suggested a private residence rather than a hotel, though John had certainly seen B&B’s with more unusual furnishings. 

_“Stick to the facts, not inane associations, John,”_ admonished his memory of Sherlock. _“Observe.”_

The room’s window had been covered with cardboard and tape, which John left untouched for now. The musty smell of a long-closed-up room pervaded the atmosphere, but what air filtered in from the window seemed to be more smoggy than country-pure or sea-salty. Sound drifted up from not too far below: cars, muffled voices, and there, distantly—the sound of an emergency siren. Still in the Empire, then. Maybe even in London. 

“Why London?” John mused. If he wanted to escape Sherlock, he’d certainly have gone farther than that. Perhaps this place had some significance, then. 

John decided the room must represent its occupant’s very specific tastes, because no one would have put together this decor thinking it pleasantly neutral. The patterned green wallpaper was nice enough, but John couldn’t make sense of the decorations. Besides the poster of the periodic table, the walls held a large scroll of what John guessed was Chinese, and a sizeable, old-fashioned, black-and-white photo of a severe, wild-haired man John didn’t recognize. 

John could almost hear Sherlock’s exasperated admonishment. _”This is why research is important, John. You’ll never make use of your observations if you can’t identify what you’re seeing.”_

John turned his attention to the furnishings: double bed, under which lived an extensive colony of dust bunnies; bureau empty of everything save eight pairs of socks, neatly arranged by shade; wardrobe containing a few lonely hangers, also empty. The bookshelf provided the most interesting clues, stuffed, as it was, full of a bewildering assortment of volumes: biographies of serial killers, a set of volumes on organic chemistry, and the _Handbook of Poisonous and Injurious Plants_. An illustrated guide to practical butchering, a well-worn London A-Z, a slim paperback called _The Sweet Science_ that turned out to be about boxing. A hardback book on beekeeping with “property of the London Imperial Library” stamped on the inside cover. 

“Who’d have all this lot?” John mused.

 _“A disused city flat, eccentrically decorated, stocked with knowledge of a century’s worth of crime,”_ said his inner Sherlock. _“Who do you suppose?”_

John pulled a book from the shelf and turned to a random page. A diagram of the human circulatory system had the throat circled, and a note scrawled in the margin: _severed carotid artery may bleed out in two minutes._

He could hear the rain again in the garden of the Holmes estate, Lord Mycroft pronouncing “exsanguinated” in crisp tones, and Soo Lin’s lengthy, desperate speech before Jim led her away. He slammed the book shut. “Bloody Moriarty. This is his place. His damn fortress of solitude.” He tossed the book on his shelf and wiped his hands on his trousers.

His inner Sherlock said nothing, which John took to mean acceptance of his opinion, for once.  
\--

 

Lestrade stopped for a quick scrub down and a change of clothes. The cuffs of his best formal shirt were stained with drying blood. Rather than toss it in the laundry, Lestrade set it aside. If Lord Mycroft wouldn’t need him at formal events any more, there was no sense in the house slaves going to the trouble of cleaning it. After putting on clean clothes, he picked up the collar Anthea had delivered and buckled the clasp without allowing himself to wax maudlin on what it represented. 

Feeling marginally more presentable, Lestrade headed back to the personal slave’s assembly room, where he found Sally gathering last evening’s reports.

“Find anything unusual?” He settled into a soft chair across from her, ignoring his aching joints, which were registering complaints at so many hours of formal attendance followed by what seemed to be a distinct lack of sleep.

“No.” She sorted a few more files on her tablet before giving him her attention. “Nothing I wouldn’t expect after last night, anyway.”

“Thanks for keeping up with all this for me.” He leaned over to take the tablet from her and pen his initials on the summary she’d put together. “I imagine you may need to take on a few more duties in the coming days.”

“Why’s that?”

Lestrade resisted the urge to fidget with his ill-fitting collar. He’d rather not lie to Sally, but without knowing for sure what duties Lord Mycroft would want him to carry out, he shouldn’t start tongues wagging. “I’m helping Lord Sherlock track down John.”

“Isn’t that a matter for the police?” Sally settled back in her chair. “He did shoot a lord, not to mention killing those guards.”

“Is that the word around the house?”

Sally shrugged.

“It’s not true. John didn’t kill those men, alright? You can say I said so to anyone who will listen.” Lestrade shook his head. He doubted his word would carry much weight after the household learned he was no longer Lord Mycroft’s chosen bed warmer, but he had to try while he had the chance. “In any case, John is missing, and I’m doing what I can to get him back.”

“Have you considered that he might actually have run away?” Sally asked. “He never was a model of proper behaviour. And if my master was the freak, I’d be tempted.”

“I won’t believe that of him.”

“In the end, it doesn’t matter what we believe, does it?” Sally stood up and took the tablet back from Lestrade. “The inquisitors will look at the evidence, and that will be that.”

“Evidence. Right.” He couldn’t approach this as a slave, passively following a master’s orders. That’s what had got him into this situation. He’d have to be a detective again: look for clues, questions witnesses, and follow his gut. A man’s life was at stake—as good a man as had ever served with Lestrade. He would pull out all the stops to find a missing comrade, and he’d do no less for John. “Thanks, Sally.”

“Gregory?” She clutched the tablet in both hands. “Don’t be foolish. Whatever John’s got you mixed up in, it’s not worth giving up as good a thing as you’ve got.” She looked pointedly at his plain collar.

“I’ll do what I can.” 

Sally nodded and disappeared into the office.

Lestrade looked after her for a moment, wondering how long he’d have her friendship. If Lord Mycroft decided to send him away sooner rather than later, he might not see her again. He stood up, but turned his feet towards the hallway instead. He had work to do, and no time for regrets. 

The narrow slave corridors lead him to John’s door in minutes. To his mild surprise, his thumb on the control panel disengaged the lock. Lord Mycroft must not have got around to revoking his security clearance.

In the cold morning light, the tiny room looked like a crime scene. Clothes lay strewn about on every surface. The wall sported a haphazard arrangement of paper scraps, photos, and other mementos. In a clear patch of floor at the centre of the room sat a pair of white trainers, a bit scuffed, with the laces neatly tucked inside. For a moment, Lestrade thought the Imperial soldiers might have ransacked the room already, but then he remembered that Lord Sherlock had been staying here.

Lestrade took a step inside, careful to disturb nothing. He had no forensics team to analyze the evidence, so he’d need to make do with old-fashioned detective work. Though with this much debris on the floor, he’d be hard-pressed to say what constituted “out of place.” He’d need to speak to someone who knew the victim’s living habits. 

“Those aren’t John’s,” Lord Sherlock said as soon as Lestrade got him through the door. He flung himself to the floor, crouched by the shoes, and leaned in to sniff them. 

“Thought that might be the case. They were sitting by themselves in the middle of the rest of this mess.”

“They’ve been put here since the shooting. They weren’t here when I came to get the gun, during the entertainment last night.”

“Gun?”

“It’s not important.” Lord Sherlock pulled out his mobile and snapped a photo of the shoes. “These may be.”

Lestrade squeezed his eyes closed and tried to forget that he’d heard mention of a weapon in a slave’s quarters, then turned his attention to the trainers. “They look like uniform shoes, the kind outdoor slaves might wear, but a retro style,” he offered.

“No.” Lord Sherlock thumbed through a search on his phone. “Not retro. Original.” He showed Lestrade a photo on his screen: the trainers featured in an ad from the late 80’s. “I need to run some tests.” He snatched the shoes in one hand and swept out of the room.  
\--

 

With Lord Sherlock haring off after his own leads, just like old times, Lestrade set out to do the boring bits, as “Charles Butler” had always called them. He couldn’t deduce other slaves’ life stories from their clothing, but he could ask his contacts for information about possible suspects. 

“I know all the housekeepers, every last one,” Mrs. Hudson reported. “We get a bit of turnover: girl doesn’t work out, a new one comes in to train, or the like.”

“Any of the new ones seem unusual?” Lestrade asked.

“Well, one girl’s a vegetarian, but other than that they’re all right as rain.”

The story was the same in the kitchen. 

“We had half a dozen slaves in for temporary kitchen help,” Mrs. Turner told him. “All gone now.”

“Did any of them wander off during the evening?”

“Couldn’t have done. They were chained to the stove.” At Lestrade’s dark look, Mrs. Turner chuckled. “Figuratively, love.”

Despite the chilly drizzle, Lestrade tramped to the outbuildings to question his old football chums. 

“No, we’re a regular gang,” Liam said. “No one new in the past year.” He rubbed a rag against the bonnet of a black Mercedes much harder than necessary. “Though we just got news Rohan and Colin are gettin’ sold. It isn’t right, if you ask me.”

“No, it’s isn’t.” Lestrade looked out from the garage across the gardens to where the house’s stark outline stood against the darkening sky. He remembered thinking, when he’d first seen the manor’s imposing facade, that he could never be at ease in a place like this. His footballer friends had seemed so comfortable here, and it wouldn’t be the same without them. Lestrade found it difficult to imagine that soon the place he’d come to love would no longer be his home.

When Lestrade sought out Lord Sherlock to report his meagre findings, the under-butler pointed him in the direction of the drawing room. He found Lord Sherlock staring out the window while Lord Wilkes sipped red wine and carried on a monologue at top volume. A polite clearing of Lestrade’s throat went unnoticed.

“You never did have much feeling, you did you?” Wilkes asked with a sweep of his arm. “Well, I went to see him in hospital this morning. He seems to be recovering well, thanks for your concern. He’s got that boy your brother sold him to keep him company while he mends. More than you’ve got, eh?” 

Wilkes staggered upright and went to sling an arm around Lord Sherlock, who curled his lip, but didn’t pull away. “At least they’ve got him under guard, in case your missing slave comes back to finish the job.” Wilkes jabbed an elbow at Lord Sherlock. “I knew your pet could shoot, but I didn’t expect him to turn on his masters.”

“He only has one master.” Lord Sherlock met Lestrade’s eyes in the reflection in the window, and nodded.

“Technically, I suppose. Listen.” Wilkes patted his shoulder. “If you want him brought in, I know a great firm that does runaway recovery. You can specify if you want him alive, but a violent one like Watson, you may as well not bother.”

“Recovery,” Lord Sherlock said slowly. “They specialize in catching runaways.”

“They even work with the insurance agencies, so ensure you recover the full worth, even if the slave is damaged or destroyed in the process.” Wilkes drifted back to his chair and considered his empty wine glass. “They do a good business.”

“Slave insurance.”

“You do have insurance, don’t you?” Wilkes grinned up at Lord Sherlock. “New owner and all, I’d have thought you’d take care of something like that.”

Lord Sherlock turned on his heel. He swept past Lestrade and out of the room.

“Of all the...” Wilkes muttered, before catching sight of Lestrade. “Hey there! Where’ve you lot been? I’m bloody parched!”

“Pardon me, sir.” Lestrade sketched a bow towards Wilkes before dashing out. He caught sight of Lord Sherlock’s jacket sweeping around the banister in the front hall, and charged up the stairs after him. “Lord Sherlock. Sir!” He spotted his quarry in the second storey hallway, though he had to walk fast to catch up.

“I should have seen it before,” Lord Sherlock said over his shoulder as Lestrade approached, but he didn’t slow his pace. “I should have known.”

“Sir, please tell me you aren’t running off to look into John’s insurance value.”

“I need you to look into an insurance claim. 1989. The slave drowned here, in the lake on the estate, though he wasn’t owned by my family. The boy’s name was Carl Powers.” Lord Sherlock swirled to a stop in front of the door at the end of the hall. “I want all the details from the scene, anything in the record that seems unusual.”

“Right, okay, but what does this have to do with the case?” Lestrade asked.

“The shoes, Lestrade! Now do it.” Lord Sherlock swept into the room and slammed the door behind him, leaving Lestrade to follow orders.  
\--


	2. Chapter 2

“Good morning, sunshine.” 

John opened his eyes to see a pair of heavy boots propped on top of the duvet covering his chest. He shifted to try to dislodge the feet, but found his limbs sluggish and unresponsive.

“You might not be feeling very chipper for the next few hours. We had to put you out.”

John’s eyes darted to the window, where he’d been trying to peel away the covering without making any noise his minders would hear. The last thing John remembered was the door banging open, and a man in black military garb coming at him with a needle. Bleary-eyed, he followed the legs resting on top of him to find their owner sitting in a chair next to his bed: Colonel Sebastian Moran.

“You were trying to scarper.” Moran smiled widely. “Wouldn’t want you to spoil the game before we got to the really fun part.”

“Are you having fun?” John asked, voice raspy from disuse.

“Not yet.” Moran nodded towards his arm, immobilized in a sling. John could make out the bulk of a bandage covering his left shoulder beneath his shirt. “Still recuperating.”

“That’s too bad.” John wished he’d been able to get off a clean shot. Then Moran wouldn’t need to complain about his recovery.

“Don’t sound too smug. I’d be within my rights to snuff you out right here. A dangerous runaway resisting capture? No one would blame me.”

“Jim wouldn’t be pleased.”

“No.” Moran’s smile vanished. “We’ve got better plans for you, darling. Just be patient.”

John could well imagine what sort of plans a man like Jim would think were “fun.” “He’s not really a slave, I take it.”

“The rules of the Empire aren’t for men like him. He made me what I am today.” Moran pressed a finger to his lips in mock-thoughtfulness. “Now, your master, on the other hand. He may treat you decently, make you think you’re special, but you’ll always be a slave to him.”

“The Empire made me a slave, not Sherlock.”

“That loyalty’s very touching. It’s no wonder he likes having you around. You suck his cock, kiss his arse, and don’t ask too many questions.”

“Is that what you do for Jim?”

A slow, toothy smile spread over Moran’s face. “He trusts me to take care of things.” He dragged his feet off John’s chest and stood. “I’m going to make sure you keep out of trouble until it’s time for you to be useful.”

Moran dragged the duvet off the bed and cast it aside. When the cold air hit his skin, John realized he’d been relieved of his clothing. Moran stood over him, grinning dangerously as John tried to coordinate his wayward limbs enough to turn over, curl up, anything.

“Don’t touch me,” he snapped when Moran reached out a hand. 

“What, you’re saving yourself for your master? You respect his claim on your arse?” Moran laughed, but when John flinched again, he drew his hand back. “Relax, Watson. I’m not going to fuck you.”

One handed, Moran shoved John onto his belly. He easily quelled John’s uncoordinated struggle. John could see a long rope curled in Moran’s hand, which he wrapped around John’s wrists and proceeded to tighten. “Does your master ever tie you up like this?”

“He doesn’t need to,” John snapped, before he realized how that sounded. He bit back any more incriminating words, and resolved not to let Moran bait him.

“No? Because you roll over for him like a bitch in heat.” 

“He doesn’t treat me like an animal.” John tried to buck off Moran’s touch, but the ropes caught his forearms together behind his back, and held fast.

“Oh, high praise, that. A ringing endorsement. Rumour around the estate was that you chose him. Begged Lord Mycroft to let Sherlock buy you. Bet you’re having second thoughts about that now.”

“Not really.”

“You poor fool. He’s really taken you in, hasn’t he.” Moran tied off the rope around John’s arms with a quick tug, and moved to pin down John’s legs. “I’ll tell you a story. There was once an Army officer discharged under unfortunate circumstances. To fulfill his family’s Imperial obligation, he was sold as a slave. Sound familiar so far?” 

John said nothing. Moran cinched a loop tight around John’s thigh, holding one end with his bad hand while he tied the knot. 

“After enduring a series of unsavoury masters, the slave was condemned as violent and incorrigible, and was slated to be destroyed. Then, by chance, he met a genius. This genius saw something in the slave: a potential to be useful.” 

Moran bent John’s leg and secured the rope around his calf, binding it to his thigh. He began to repeat the procedure with John’s other leg.

“He saved the slave from death and gave him a new identity. Rules don’t apply to geniuses like this man. They can bend laws, people, the whole world to their whims. They can fix things to their liking. Up.” Moran tapped John’s hip until he lifted up, and helped him fold his legs under his body. “There.” He pulled the end of a rope from each thigh to the bed posts and tied them off. “And the Army officer—no longer a slave—could embrace that potential the genius saw.”

Moran came to the side of the bed and leaned down to loop a knotted rope around John’s neck.

“Now, I wonder why Lord Sherlock hasn’t offered to get you out of your contract somehow. I don’t doubt he could do it,” he said as he secured a line from the rope at back of John’s neck to the headboard. “Maybe he thinks you’re not worth the trouble. Or perhaps he’s content to bow to the Empire’s laws as long as they suit his needs. What do you think, Watson?”

“I think telling stories about yourself in the third person is very bad form,” John grumbled into the covers.

“Funny. He said you were funny.”

John turned his head against the ropes just enough to look at Moran. “Your genius, Jim? A man who thinks the rules don’t apply to him, and wants to re-make the world to his will? He sounds like a psychopath. You might want to watch your back.”

Moran struck snake-quick, shoving John’s head hard into the duvet with his good hand and leaning in. John struggled to breathe as Moran held him down. His uncoordinated limbs thrashed weakly, held fast by knotted rope. Just when his lungs began to burn from lack of oxygen, Moran released his grip. John lifted up as much as his restraints would allow and gasped for air.

Moran took a step away from the bed and stood regarding his handiwork. “Say what you like about me, Watson, but don’t ever speak ill of Jim. He’s ten times the man your master will ever be.”

John gulped in a few deep breaths before answering. “All the same, I think I’d choose mine over yours.”

“You think he’s some kind of hero? You think he cares about your kind?” Moran shook his head. “Ask your mate Lestrade how he got where he is.”

“A case went wrong,” John said slowly. 

“Lord Sherlock went wrong.” Moran chuckled. “Lestrade would have to be vague about it, wouldn’t he? The mighty Lord Mycroft Holmes wouldn’t want it spread about that his brother’s a junkie.”

“Sherlock, an addict?” John scoffed. Of course Moran would tell outrageous lies. He couldn’t let himself get worked up over a madman’s taunting.

As if Moran had heard him, he perched onto the edge of the bed and smiled down at John. “I don’t need to lie to make Lord Sherlock look bad, I assure you.” Moran leaned down, close enough that John could feel the heat of Moran’s breath against his naked skin. 

“How well do you know him, really? Does he tell you everything? After he fucks you, do you sit up braiding each other’s hair and telling secrets? Are you his equal?” At John’s stubborn silence, Moran only smiled. “I thought not.”

Moran smoothed his fingers down John’s spine and patted him on the ass. “Stay out of trouble, Watson. You’ll be seeing him again soon.”  
\--

 

Anthea appeared as if out of thin air to block Lord Sherlock’s dramatic sweep into Lord Mycroft’s library. She spared a quick glance for Lestrade at his side, but spoke directly to Lord Sherlock. “He can’t be disturbed, sir.”

“Oh, how sad for him.” Lord Sherlock stepped to the side, but Anthea quickly blocked him.

“No, sir, he really cannot be disturbed.”

Lord Sherlock looked at the closed door, then back to Anthea, and heaved a sigh. “I see. Fetch me as soon as the Empress is done scolding him.” He turned on his heel and stormed out into the corridor.

Lestrade offered Anthea an apologetic smile. “Sorry, he’s been stroppy all day.” He nodded towards the door. “How is he?”

Anthea didn’t return his smile. “Stay and find out.”

“I—“

“Lestrade!” Lord Sherlock’s shout carried in from the hallway.

Lestrade shook his head at Anthea and hurried to follow Lord Sherlock before his yelling disturbed Lord Mycroft.

Lord Sherlock stood at the far side of the corridor staring out the tall windows at the courtyard, where a steady rain had begun to fall. “Right, tell me the rest of what you know. What little of it there may be.”

Lestrade came to stand beside him. “I’ve talked to others on the estate; not many unfamiliar faces, besides those who were here short-term for the banquet.”

“No, about the _intruder_ , Lestrade. You’re the one who found him, yes?”

“Yes.” Though Lestrade had come so close to missing the burglar that he couldn’t feel anything other than relief at having been the one to thwart the robbery. “Just after the entertainment.”

“One of the slaves the Chinese ambassador brought in. That’s why Mycroft was so keen on making certain they arrived without trouble from Customs.”

Lestrade thought of the Customs declaration paperwork he’d seen, and nodded. “The Bird Spider, they called him. A hell of an acrobat, apparently. Good enough to scale the walls of this place. Strong, too.” Lestrade rubbed the red marks just below his collar where the man had tried to strangle him. He’d been lucky to escape alive. 

“He attacked you.” Lord Sherlock leaned in close, pushing Lestrade’s face to the side to get a closer look at the mark on his neck. “With a garrote.”

“Makeshift one, yeah.” Lestrade could still feel the tenderness from the bruising. It didn’t feel as strange as having a lighter band around his neck where his proper collar should be. “Luckily he didn’t seem to be expecting much fight from a fellow slave.”

“Hm.” Lord Sherlock released his grip on Lestrade. “What did he take?”

“We found a memory stick on him: don’t know what’s on it that he wanted.”

“It’s obvious,” Lord Sherlock snorted.

“Not to me.”

“Use your brain, Lestrade.” Lord Sherlock glared at him. “ _Think!_ ”

“Information the Chinese government wants,” Lestrade ventured.

“No. They don’t want this to get out any more than Mycroft does.”

“Then what?”

“The assassination had to take place last night. With all the distractions, it was the perfect time to acquire evidence about the planning.”

“For who to acquire--?”

“Moriarty! Of course.” Lord Sherlock turned back to the window. “Fodder for scandal in both empires.”

“So that’s what he’s really been after: information.”

“Yes. The most dangerous commodity available.” 

“Sherlock, you wanted a word?” 

They both turned to see Lord Mycroft standing at the door. The dark circles under his eyes stood out prominently against paler than usual skin. His tie was rumpled. 

“Mycroft.” Lord Sherlock swept past him into the small library, and Lestrade followed with eyes downcast. “Done getting scolded, are you?”

Lord Mycroft closed the door behind them and addressed Lord Sherlock. “Have you found anything relevant?”

Lord Sherlock spared a quick, unreadable glance towards Lestrade before launching into his deductions. “The memory stick that was almost stolen—it held evidence of the Empire’s collusion with the Chinese in this assassination plot.”

Lord Mycroft frowned. “Something like that, yes.”

“I need it.”

Lestrade risked a quick peek at Lord Mycroft’s face, and took note of his tired expression.

“For?” Lord Mycroft asked.

“The investigation.”

“I can’t just hand over classified information.”

“Do you want this investigation to succeed or not?”

Lord Mycroft’s eyes cut to Lestrade, and his jaw tightened. “I could give the memory stick to my personal slave for safekeeping. I’m certain that if a true necessity arose, he would make an appropriate decision about disseminating the data.”

“Hm.” Lord Sherlock looked at Lestrade, before turning his focused attention onto Lord Mycroft. He held his gaze for several seconds before nodding once. “Fine. I’ll be in my laboratory.” Lord Sherlock swept out of the room. 

Lord Mycroft motioned for Lestrade to follow him into his office. 

Anthea stood next to the desk, sorting paperwork into two neat stacks. When she saw Lestrade, her eyes widened. “Excuse me, sir,” she said to Lord Mycroft, then took herself off.

Lord Mycroft stood just inside the room, staring at Lestrade as if he’d never seen him before. Lestrade stayed in the doorway, eyes drifting around the familiar office, looking anywhere but at his master. 

At last, Lord Mycroft started towards his desk. Over his shoulder, he said, “You should have those bruises looked at. An attempted strangling is no small matter.”

“There should be no permanent damage, sir. I’ll still be sellable. Or, at least as sellable as I was before.”

Lord Mycroft halted in his journey to the desk, his back to Lestrade. “That was not my concern,” he murmured. 

Lestrade resisted the urge to go to him: to straighten his tie, to admonish him for not sleeping, to ask if he could help. Instead, he stopped three paces from the door. “Yes, sir,” he said.

“Well.” Lord Mycroft stepped behind his desk and entered the code for a locked drawer. “I understand you’ve been providing Sherlock ample assistance.”

“John’s my friend, sir. I’d like to get him home safely.”

“Yes. Yes of course.” Lord Mycroft plucked a memory stick out of the drawer and held it between thumb and forefinger.

“Is there anything else, sir?” Lestrade held out his hand for the memory stick. “I should---“

“There’s something I’d like to say.” Lord Mycroft hesitated. Lestrade clasped his hands behind his back and bowed his head in proper listening position. He could no longer see Lord Mycroft’s expression, but the silence grew to uncomfortable lengths before he spoke again. 

When he did, his voice was quiet and subdued, as if it had barely the strength to cross the distance between them. “I am not a coward. To have you think such a thing of me is insupportable. I... My talents do not lie in leadership, as yours do. I am at my most effective when I’m able to work unobserved. I can serve the Empire better as a minor Imperial official than as the Lord of Westminster. Gregory, will you look at me?”

Lestrade dragged his gaze up to fix on Lord Mycroft, though it took considerable restraint not to react to the veiled plea he found there. “You’re saying there was nothing self-serving about your plan.”

“No. I admit it would have been immensely convenient on a personal level. It would have allowed me to...” Lord Mycroft quickly shook his head. “But I would not have considered such a course if it would have been a detriment to my work in any way.” 

“I know that. I think I know that.” Lestrade moved closer. Facing Lord Mycroft across the desk felt wrong, as if he were a visiting petitioner instead of a slave. But perhaps that meant he had a prayer of making Lord Mycroft hear him. “All the same, you’re responsible for more than pleasing yourself, sir.”

“Yes, I know that very well.” Lord Mycroft’s posture stiffened. 

“I’m not sure you do. I’m at your mercy, sir. John and I, all of us, are yours to dispose of as you will. If you’re not watching out for us—if you’re willing to sacrifice John as a pawn in your game, then how dear do you hold our lives, truly?”

“I know it must be difficult to—“

“No, sir.” Lestrade strode around the desk to stand face to face with his master. “What you and Sherlock can’t seem to wrap your brains around is that as brilliant as you are, you will never understand what it’s like to be a slave. All your life you’ve had power—not unlimited, perhaps, but enough to manage. You’ve had to make difficult choices, but they were yours to make. You don’t know what it’s like to stand by and know that you _could_ act, but are forbidden. To know you’re capable of action, but to stop yourself from going beyond the scope of your master’s orders. To expect punishment for each liberty you take, and to weigh that punishment against the cost of your conscience. You will never know what that does to a man.”

“Gregory.” Lord Mycroft reached out a hand, but Lestrade’s small shift away stopped him. “I am sorry.”

“I know, sir. But that doesn’t make things right.” Lestrade held out his hand for the memory stick. Lord Mycroft placed it in his palm. His touch was warm and dry. Lestrade closed his fingers over the memory stick and pulled away. He kept his eyes on the floor, as was proper. “I have to go.”  
\--

 

John couldn’t be sure how much time had passed. No light filtered through the thick blindfold Moran had secured. It could have been late afternoon or the middle of the night. The drafts ghosting over John’s naked skin felt colder, but that could just have been his body trying to conserve energy. His legs were going numb from the awkward position: folded under him with ankles secured to a loop around his thighs, and legs anchored to opposite bedposts. The strain on his arms, lashed together from elbows to wrists behind his back, had begun to wear on his bad shoulder. The rope collar Moran had fashioned and tethered to the headboard prevented John from sitting up or turning over. 

Moran had certainly done himself proud, even working mostly one-handed. John had spent the first half-hour or so after Moran took his leave methodically testing the restrains, but they hadn’t budged. Now, he could only endure. It had been what—two days ago?—that Lestrade had tried to make him understand the importance of endurance in the life of a slave.

John pressed his eyes shut, a meaningless gesture with the blindfold in place, and tried to take deep breaths. For all he’d been restrained in the past weeks—chained spread-eagled in Lord Mycroft’s work room, hanging on display during the clouer au pilori, spilling down Sherlock’s throat while shouting into a gag—he’d never felt as helpless as he did now. 

Even when an unseen assailant—Jim, must have been Jim—tried to smother him, he’d still been able to fight back. This position kept his legs spread and ass raised in an obscene display, and left him no leverage.

John catalogued a number of minor pains to try to keep his mind off his vulnerable state: a twinge in his injured shoulder, the goose-egg on his head from an Imperial guard’s overzealous use of his rifle butt, and, when he moved, the dull flair of pain in the incision at the base of his spine, where his tracking chip had been. Each new hurt he noticed reminded him how powerless he was. He couldn’t fight back, and he couldn’t count on anyone coming to help him.

John felt his breaths getting shallower as his chest tightened in panic. He pulled against the leg restraints and felt the bite of the smooth rope into his skin, but no give. With a scream of frustration, he thrashed in his bonds, heedless of the painful tightening of the ropes as hysteria overtook rational thought. The burn of the rope against his throat brought back the memory of Sherlock tucking his fingers into John’s collar while John held him down. Sherlock hadn’t been afraid that John would hurt him. Sherlock had trusted John to know when to stop. Sherlock.

John’s panicked struggles subsided. He gulped in air and made himself relax. He couldn’t afford to injure himself further, not now when he’d need every bit of his strength to get out of this alive. He had to stay calm. 

As John marshaled his breath, he recalled his first encounter with Sherlock, in the personal slaves’ assembly room. How each strike of Sherlock’s riding crop had torn through the veil of boredom and despair John had been living in. How his body had sung through the pain, embracing it as an old friend. How Sherlock had leaned against him and growled threats and promises. 

If John thought about it, he could imagine that this was just one of Sherlock’s larks. Sherlock wouldn’t have hesitated to tie John up himself, if the mood had struck. He wouldn’t have left John alone, however. Sherlock could never resist observing the effects of his experiments.

_”I’d want to catalogue your responses,”_ said the Sherlock in John’s head. _“Measure your limits. Would you do that for me?”_

John could well imagine the basso purr of Sherlock’s voice. As he relaxed, the ropes felt less confining.

_”Would you endure longer than you thought possible, if I asked you to? You can be remarkably patient, I’ve noticed. There will be time for struggle later.”_

John managed a deep breath and let the tension bleed out of his muscles.

_”If you do well here, I’ll let you pin me down and take me. You promised you would. I’m quite looking forward to that when this is over. My_ reward _.”_

John sank into the bed, aware of the ropes that bound him, but only as anchors tethering his consciousness to his body. He imagined Sherlock here, standing watch over him, observing his every move, and settled in to wait.  
\--

 

Lestrade had searched every room in the family wing before he thought to check Lord Mycroft’s work room. He found Lord Sherlock installed in the far corner, behind a long table crowded with scientific equipment and electronics. 

“When you said laboratory,” Lestrade said, “I thought… Where did you get all of this?”

“Storage. Mycroft didn’t need this room. It served his purpose as a stage for that encounter with John. He hasn’t used it since then. I doubt he’s even noticed I modified it.” Lord Sherlock turned away from adjusting the knobs on a machine to pin Lestrade with a sharp look. “Do you have objections? I thought you wouldn’t be interested in his proclivities any longer.”

“It’s not... I don’t…” Lestrade didn’t know how to even begin to answer, so he held up a folder instead. “Here’s the insurance report you asked for. Carl Powers was owned by a family from Brighton.” 

“Yes. Came up for the slave obedience trial. Had some sort of fit and drowned on the water course.”

“Right. Well, there was an investigation. Young, promising slave, cheap to insure, expensive for the company to pay out.” Lestrade flipped to the sixth page of the report, where he’d uncovered a tidbit that had surprised him. “They didn’t find anything suspicious, but the agent did make a note that one party tried to get him interested in a wild theory about foul play. That party would be... the young son of the estate’s owner, one Sherlock Holmes.”

“Yes, I know all of that.” Lord Sherlock wave a hand impatiently. “I want the details from the report. What else did they find?”

“Cause of death was drowning, but no explanation of what caused the fit in the first place. Only known health condition was eczema, and that doesn’t cause seizures or paralysis.”

“I knew something was off, but I couldn’t get the authorities interested. Property loss investigations are rarely glamorous or profitable.”

“You think it was an insurance scam?”

“Use your head, Lestrade. The money didn’t come into it.” Lord Sherlock pressed his fingertips together under his chin. “No, this was personal. The killer wanted Carl Powers to suffer. He wanted satisfaction. He kept the shoes all these years.”

“These are the same shoes?” At Lord Sherlock’s derisive look, Lestrade scanned through the appendix. “Wait, yes, the report said that all Powers’ clothes were accounted for except his shoes. Why would the killer take them? As a trophy?”

“Perhaps. Or they could be incriminating in some way.”

“I suppose.” As Lestrade reread the coroner’s report, it triggered something in his memory. “Funny. You know the Chinese ambassador’s son had eczema, too.”

Lord Sherlock glanced up from his microscope. “The dead one?”

“Yeah. He was here last spring, took on one of our slaves for a night. Anderson, if I remember correctly. The write-up complained at length about the eczema. Not very appetizing stuff.”

“The son was also murdered.”

“I thought he was stabbed.” Lestrade remembered seeing some grizzly crime scene photos on Lord Mycroft’s desk.

“Yes, but I’m not convinced that was the only weapon used. There were no defensive wounds, no sign of a struggle in the room. The whole scene was staged carefully, what with the book, and—“ Lord Sherlock hurried over to the shoes and snapped on a pair of latex gloves. “The report—does it mention any medicines Powers used?”

Lestrade flipped back through the pages. “Yes, here we are. A topical cream for the eczema.”

“Recovered with his belongings?”

“No. It’s not in the evidence inventory. Maybe he didn’t bring it with him.”

“Possible.” Lord Sherlock began unlacing one of the shoes. “Go find out if the ambassador’s son used the same medicine.”

Lestrade wasn’t certain yet where Lord Sherlock’s deductions were taking him, but he was familiar enough with the man’s methods to make an educated guess. “You think they were killed the same way.”

“Yes. By the same killer. He’s leaving me a bread crumb trail.” Lord Sherlock brushed past Lestrade, carrying a shoelace with a pair of tweezers. “Now, go talk to the ambassador.”

“I…” Lestrade cleared his throat. “I can’t.”

“You’re not doing any good standing around here. Go talk to him,” Lord Sherlock called over his shoulder as he laid the shoelace in a shallow dish.

“Sherlock, sir, I can’t.” Perhaps yesterday Lestrade would have been able to arrange something, but without the status afforded by his close affiliation with Lord Mycroft, Lestrade had no special privileges, and no one had any reason to do him favours. “A slave can’t speak to a foreign diplomat. Even if the guards would let me in, I couldn’t—“

“These rules are intolerable!” Sherlock pushed away from his work table, ripped off his gloves, and charged up to Lestrade. “How am I to work with all this nonsense preventing me? Do you want to help find John or don’t you?”

“Of course I do. I’ll find a way to get the information about the ambassador’s son.” Lestrade made bold to lay his hand on Lord Sherlock’s shoulder. “We’ll find him.”

“You don’t know that.” Lord Sherlock shrugged off Lestrade’s touch. “You don’t know anything.” He stomped back to the desk and snapped on a fresh pair of gloves.

“Yes, sir,” Lestrade said quickly. Lord Sherlock didn’t look up when Lestrade left.  
—

 

Lestrade read over the customs report—begged from Anthea, who hadn’t spoken a word to him when she passed it over—enumerating the medications approved for entry on the last visit of the ambassador’s son. He was somewhat relieved to see that an eczema cream was, indeed, on the list. When he eased open the door to the workroom-cum-laboratory, he braced himself for a flurry of curses or projectile lab equipment, but the room looked deserted.

“Lord Sherlock?” he called.

The man in question materialized out of nowhere with a manic gleam in his eye. He grabbed Lestrade by the arm and tugged him towards his lab table. “The son? Same medicine?” 

“Yes, sir.” Lestrade held up the report. “Just as you thought.”

“It’s impossible to know without examining the Hong Kong evidence myself, but I believe we’re dealing with the same method of killing, 20 years apart.” Lord Sherlock gestured to a photo printout tacked to the wall, which featured some body part Lestrade couldn’t immediately identify.

“Which has something to do with eczema?”

“Do keep up, Lestrade.” Lord Sherlock turned the screen on his laptop to show Lestrade a readout of text accompanied by a close-up view of some kind of chemical compound. “Clostridium botulinum. Virtually undetectable. Induces paralysis. Introduced into the foot cream. A few hours later it takes effect: Carl Powers drowns, the ambassador’s son is incapacitated in his hotel room, making it easy for Moriarty’s Tong agents to stage the murder scene to his satisfaction.”

“You think this is Moriarty’s work?”

“Yes, obviously. He targeted me specifically. It wasn’t Mycroft he wanted to challenge; it was me.” Lord Sherlock sounded almost pleased. “We’ve been rivals longer than I knew.”

“Where does this leave us?” Lestrade frowned at the assembled evidence. “We don’t know anything more about his identity than we did before. Why would he even leave these? Is he just taunting us?”

“It’s a message for me.” Lord Sherlock grabbed his laptop and opened a new document.

“What are you up to?”

“Moriarty must have access to Mycroft’s network,” Lord Sherlock said as he typed. “That’s how he’s been able to operate right under my brother’s nose all this time. I just need to get his attention.”

Lord Sherlock turned the screen to show Lestrade what he’d written, in a file titled, “The Game Is On:” _Carl Powers (1978-1989), trainers contain traces of botulinum toxin._ He saved the file and closed it. 

“You’re saying he has access to everything.” Lestrade scrubbed a hand through his hair as he considered that. “Saved documents, personnel files, duty rosters. Security codes?”

“Very likely. Most of my investigation has been decidedly analog.” Lord Sherlock nodded towards the wall, haphazardly covered in text print-outs and photos. “There’s never been a need to document my investigations digitally—so at least that much is likely to have escaped his scrutiny.”

“Right. John said you had your own way of organizing things.” Lestrade held back a chuckle at the memory of John’s expression when he’d said so, perhaps best described as fond resignation.

“What did he say about me?” Sherlock demanded, suddenly looming far inside Lestrade’s personal space.

“Nothing, sir. Truly.” 

Lord Sherlock frowned, but went back to his laptop.

Lestrade watched him a moment before speaking. “You know he was better, when he was with you.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“When he arrived, he acted as if he were only half awake.” Lestrade had recognized the condition from his own early days as a slave. “But the past few weeks, everything was different.”

Lord Sherlock’s fingers stilled on the keyboard, but he didn’t look at Lestrade. “Different how?”

“Surely you noticed a change.”

“Nothing escapes my notice.” Lord Sherlock returned to his typing.

Lestrade smiled. “Is that so, sir?”

A sharp knock sounded at the door. When Lord Sherlock made no move to leave his computer, Lestrade went to answer the door.

Wood stood in the hallway, holding a thick white envelope. “A delivery for Lord Sherlock.” She handed over the envelope.

“Are you still on duty?” Lestrade took in the slightly wrinkled state of her uniform and the stray hairs escaping her usually neat bun. “You must’ve been up all night.”

She nodded. “Lord Mycroft’s rearranged the duty roster so only those of us with more than a year of service are in the house today. Means we’re a bit short-handed.”

“Right.” Lestrade felt a momentary confusion over not being informed about the change before remembering he had given up his right to be a part of any of the business of Lord Mycroft’s household. “Well, thank you. And make sure to sleep at some point.”

She smiled at him and nodded to Lord Sherlock before taking her leave.

“Give it here.” Lord Sherlock snatched the envelope out of Lestrade’s hands and examined it carefully. “Expensive paper. Bohemian.”

“Bohemian?”

“From the Czech Protectorate.” Lord Sherlock neatly tore open the top of the envelope, and tiled the content out onto his palm: a mobile phone.

“Who’s sending you a phone?” Lestrade asked.

“Not just any phone.” Lord Sherlock picked it up by the corners and held it close to his face. “It’s mine. See the scratches on the case, then? Sustained during a run-in with the stable wall last Tuesday. This red mark is a bit of melted wax from an experiment I started last month. This isn’t just a duplicate of my mobile; it is mine.”

“Who could have stolen your phone?” A breach of digital security was one thing, but if someone was popping in and out of the family’s rooms at will—

“John had it last.” Lord Sherlock looked up to catch Lestrade’s gaze. His eyes were unusually wide, his pupils dilated. Lestrade might almost have said he was afraid. 

A sharp ring broke the silence. Both men’s attention immediately snapped to the phone in Lord Sherlock’s hand. The incoming call was from a blocked number. 

Lord Sherlock connected the call and slowly brought the phone up to his hear. “Hello?”

“Hello sexy.” The voice was a woman’s: heavily accented, but somehow familiar. “I see you liked my first puzzle.”

“Who is this?” Lord Sherlock put the phone on speaker and set it gingerly on the table. A mechanical clatter persisted in the background. “What’s that noise?”

“She is not important,” the voice said. “I’m typing, and this stupid bitch is reading it out.”

“Hostage?” Lestrade mouthed.

Lord Sherlock shook his head. “Why not talk to me yourself?” he asked.

“Patience, Sherlock. We will be together soon. If you want to find me, you have to play my game.”

Lestrade saw Lord Sherlock’s eyes narrow at that. “Where’s John?”

“I’m sending you the next puzzle piece now. Do not disappoint me, Sherlock.”

The call cut out, but the chime of an incoming text sounded immediately. Lord Sherlock snatched up the phone and frowned at the screen.

“What is it?” Lestrade asked.

“Come along.” Lord Sherlock grabbed his coat from the back of his chair and swept to the door. “We’ve work to do.”  
\--


	3. Chapter 3

As John drifted out of a sleepy haze, he felt a warm arm tucked around his shoulders. Gentle fingers skimmed down his back, tracing his vertebrae.

“Sherlock?” he muttered.

“No, darling. Just me,” a soft voice whispered in his ear.

John tried to jerk away, but found himself still held fast by ropes. “Get off,” he growled.

“I just wanted a taste. A little sample of what Sherlock’s getting.” Jim dragged his chin across John’s shoulder and nuzzled his neck above the rope. “Is he a cuddler?”

Knowing that lashing out wouldn’t help didn’t make it any easier to stay still while Jim pawed at him, but John resolved not to give Jim the satisfaction of seeing him squirm. “Guess you’ll never know.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Jim sing-songed. He released John and pulled away. The bed dipped as his weight lifted.

“I heard you were naughty while I was away.” Jim tsk-ed at John. “Seems Mycroft and Sherlock’s best attempts couldn’t teach you discipline.”

“I don’t think it’s likely you’ll succeed where they failed.”

A touch at the back of his head made John flinch, but then his blindfold was drawn away and the tether removed from his improvised collar. John blinked as his eyes readjusted to the room’s warm lamplight. He turned his stiff neck to see Jim, in a dark blue suit, crouched next to the bed.

“If I untie you, are you going to be a good boy?” Jim asked. At John’s derisive noise, he only laughed. “My stoic little soldier. You’d try to kill me with your bare hands, wouldn’t you?” Jim reached into his inside breast pocket to pull out an elegant butterfly knife with an ivory handle. He unfolded it with a flick of his wrist. “But let’s just assume we’re all adults here, and you don’t need the consequences of misbehaving spelled out for you. You don’t want to make daddy angry, do you?”

John couldn’t see how to even begin formulating an answer to such a question, so he clenched his teeth and kept silent. 

“And if you’re good, we can have a nice little chat. I’m just _dying_ to know all about you.” Jim sat on the edge of the bed and began slicing through the ropes at John’s shins. “Do you know why I took you?”

“You’d heard about my sparkling wit?” John grunted into the covers.

“Nooooo.” Jim severed another of the ropes and slid his hand up John’s leg to settle on his thigh. “It’s because I knew he’d come after you. He doesn’t share his toys, have you noticed?” The last of the ropes around John’s leg came free. Jim clutched his ankle and carefully straightened John’s knee. “There, isn’t that better?”

John stretched as feeling flooded back into his leg, but he didn’t see a need to thank his captor for stopping his torment.

“This is all for him.” Jim rounded the bed and sat down on the other side. He settled his hand by the ropes on John’s leg, then leaned in conspiratorially. “I wanted him to come out and have some fun, to see what it’s like to play with someone at his own level.” 

“Who would that be?” John asked.

The knife slid through the ropes on John’s other leg, and John hissed as the blade bit into his skin. “Oops! Clumsy me!” Jim pulled the ropes free, but made no move to attend to the cut. “He is _enjoying_ himself. Running around town, unravelling puzzles. Have you ever seen him so alive as he is when he has a lovely crime to solve?”

John could well remember the childish joy in Sherlock’s expression as he examined the coded messages carved into Soo Lin’s skin, but then again, he’d never seen such a look of wonder as Sherlock had displayed coming undone in John’s bed under John’s mouth and John’s hands. When he shook off the memory to focus on the problem at hand, he found Jim’s face had gone cold and unreadable. 

“Get up.”

John extended his sore legs. “I’m actually rather comfortable now that the ropes are—“

“Get up, Johnny boy,” Jim said softly. “You won’t like it if I have to ask again.”

Having his arms still bound behind him made balance difficult, but John managed to roll off the bed and get to his feet not too ungracefully.

“See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Jim asked. He folded up his knife, settled it back in his pocket, then gestured grandly at the room. “Now, take a good look around. Where do you think we are?”

“Bedroom of a psychopath.” John took another glance at the assembled oddities he’d catalogued earlier. “Yours, I thought.”

“I’m flattered, really I am, but no. This place belongs to Lord Sherlock. Not one of his little boltholes, but a real home, safer from Big Brother’s prying eyes than any place in London.” Jim frowned in mock-concern. “Also, he prefers the term sociopath. You really should do your research, honey.”

John took in the room with new eyes. It looked nothing like Sherlock’s lavish quarters at the Holmes estate. However, if Jim was telling the truth, this was not a place Lord Mycroft had carefully engineered, but a home of Sherlock’s own—a glimpse of a side of him John had yet to see. 

“What do you think?” Jim asked. “Does it suit him?”

John wished he could explore the place again—turn it inside out and look for evidence of that which made Sherlock more than just a sociopath: confirmation of the existence of the heart John knew Sherlock possessed. But with Jim watching him like a serpent waiting to strike, John only shrugged. “Could do with a bit more natural light.”

Jim’s smile vanished. “You are a complete waste of his attention.” John held very still while Jim leaned in close enough to press his cheek to John’s and whisper, “I’m going to make him see how worthless you are. Then he can watch while I slice your skin off in little strips, like peeling a ripe apple.” 

When he drew back to smile at John, Jim’s eyes held no trace of a bluff, only a glint of manic anticipation. He clapped his hands briskly. “Now get dressed. We’re going for a ride.”  
-

 

At the garage, Liam and Colin’s friendly greetings turned to cold attention when they saw Lord Sherlock step up behind Lestrade. 

“I need a car immediately,” Lord Sherlock said without looking up from his phone.

“Please,” Lestrade added quickly. “We’re in a bit of a hurry.”

Liam and Colin exchanged a glance. “No one in or out without Lord Mycroft’s say-so,” Liam said. “Sorry, mate.”

“Surely direct orders from his personal slave count as ‘say so’.” Lord Sherlock tore his eyes away from his phone to look pointedly at Lestrade. Liam raised an eyebrow at him as well.

“Yes,” Lestrade said through gritted teeth. “I’m under orders.”

“Right, then. We’ll have to take an escort with. The master wants guards with anyone what goes out.” Liam nodded towards two of Lord Mycroft’s household guard chatting over by a work bench, who gave Lestrade a friendly wave.

“Tedious,” Sherlock muttered. 

Lestrade gave his friends a reassuring smile. Liam went to a box at the side of the building to grab a pair of keys while Colin got the doors opened up. “Where to?” Liam asked.

“Train station. It’s important we catch the next one into London.”

“Pity you didn’t come a quarter of an hour ago,” Liam said as he tugged on his uniform jacket. “You could have caught a ride with that contingent of redcoats.” 

“Were they going to the station, too?” 

“Yeah.”

“What for?”

Liam leaned in close. “Prisoner transport. Heard ‘em say it was one of that circus lot. She’s being transferred to Imperial custody. Bet she’s in for an unpleasant night.”

“Right.” Lestrade wondered why Lord Mycroft had given up custody, but then recalled Lord Sherlock’s earlier jab about the Empress’s displeasure. Lord Mycroft probably wasn’t in a position to insist on his ability to handle a prisoner right this moment.

The two guards climbed into the back of the roomy Mercedes, and Lestrade was going to join them when he saw Lord Sherlock snatch the keys from Liam’s hand. 

“I’m driving,” he announced. 

“But sir—“ Liam made a valiant attempt to win back the keys without doing something so untoward as grabbing for them, but Lord Sherlock made it into the driver’s seat and slammed the door with a note of finality. 

“Sorry,” Lestrade mouthed as he hurried into the passenger seat. Lord Sherlock peeled out of the garage as the guards in the backseat tried to swallow their curses. 

Lestrade spent most of the short drive either clutching his seat for dear life or squeezing his eyes shut in denial. When they arrived at the station, Lord Sherlock didn’t bother parking properly. He pulled up in front of the station, yanked on the break, and jumped out of the car. 

Lestrade, accustomed to Lord Sherlock’s methods, was out of the car and moving while the guards were still fumbling with their seat belts. “Sir, hold on a minute,” he called.

“This way!” Lord Sherlock darted through a back gate at the far end of the station. 

Lestrade spared a glance for Lord Mycroft’s guards piling out of the car, but there was no time to wait. He raced after Lord Sherlock, and found him jogging along the platform next to the train, which was chugging out of the station. When Lord Sherlock reached a pair of steps at a connecter between two carriages, he swung himself up onto the moving train, then turned and motioned to Lestrade.

“Bloody hell,” Lestrade muttered, but he put on an extra burst of speed to catch Lord Sherlock’s outstretched hand. With a jump and a pull, Lestrade stumbled onto the train. 

Lestrade gripped tight to the hand rail, and turned back to see the blue-uniformed guards chasing down the empty platform towards the departed train. He turned back to Lord Sherlock, who stood brushing invisible dirt off his coat. “That was… mad.”

“I got us on board, didn’t I?” Lord Sherlock pulled his mobile from his pocket and displayed the screen to Lestrade: a photo of a train carriage number, with a sliver of train yard visible in the background.

“That’s this train?”

“Yes. The 4:10 express to Waterloo.”

“How did you—?”

“You know I have the timetable for the Imperial rail service memorised. It’s how I solved the Bruce-Partington affair.”

“Right.” That explained why Lestrade hadn’t been listening to the details. He’d been busy watching his career burn to the ground.

The door at the end of the nearest carriage slid open to reveal an elderly, uniformed porter wearing the official navy and red collar of the Imperial railway. “Oi, you two. What do you think—“ He squinted at Lord Sherlock, and his stern look melted into a grin. “Oh, it’s you, sir.”

Lord Sherlock extended a hand to the man. “Yes, hello Cecil.” Lestrade watched in fascination as the slave took Lord Sherlock’s hand and shook it as if they were old friends. “Listen, have you got any Imperial soldiers aboard? Detaining a prisoner?”

“Yes indeed we have, sir. Got their own carriage hitched up not half an hour ago.” He hooked his thumb towards the back of the train. “Last one.”

“Thank you.” Lord Sherlock slide past Cecil into a mostly-empty carriage.

Lestrade nodded to Cecil and followed quickly. “Sir, we should tell Lord Mycroft we’re here.”

“No need,” Lord Sherlock said over his shoulder.

“Whoever these messages are from—“

“Moriarty.”

“You’re sure.”

Lord Sherlock paused and turned back to narrow his eyes at Lestrade. “It’s quite obvious. I thought even you must have realized.”

“Fine,” Lestrade said, holding on to his patience. “Moriarty. All the more reason to get some back-up, then.”

“From Mycroft? I don’t think so.” Lord Sherlock resumed barrelling down the aisle.

Lestrade followed doggedly. “Surely Moriarty knows you’re following these clues. He could be setting up some nasty surprises. If we ask Lord Mycroft—“

At the end of the carriage, Lord Sherlock whirled around so fast Lestrade almost ran into him. “He would what? Send some of his finest minions to get in my way? Mycroft has priorities of his own, and they won’t aid us in this.”

“But surely—“

“I intend to get John back by any means necessary. Do you think Mycroft would do the same?”

Lestrade dropped his eyes to the floor. He considered what he knew of Lord Mycroft’s treatment of John thus far, of John’s describing the attempt on his life, of the sticky smears of blood in the deserted cell. “No,” he said softly.

“No. Come along.” Lord Sherlock stepped through the door between carriages, trusting Lestrade to follow. They passed through the length of one more and through a connecting doorway before being confronted with a door marked, “No access: authorized Imperial personnel only.” It stood partially ajar. 

Lord Sherlock pushed through without hesitation. Lestrade, cognizant of his collar, followed more cautiously.

Four dead redcoats lay slumped over a table next to the window. One more sprawled in the aisle in front of a tiny, barred cell whose door stood wide open.

Lord Sherlock touched his fingertips to one dead man’s face, studiously avoiding the blood and brain matter spreading from the bullet hole in the man’s skull. “Still warm. Killed very recently,” he announced.

“Careful.” Lestrade began checking the pulses of the downed guards, though their obvious wounds didn’t give him much hope. “Killer could still be nearby.”

“I’m counting on it.” Lord Sherlock stepped over a spreading puddle of blood to the rear of the carriage, where another door presumably led out onto a back platform. 

“Wait,” Lestrade said through clenched teeth, rushing after him. 

Lord Sherlock ignored him and darted through the sliding door and out into the wind. 

Lestrade followed, but stopped when he saw a woman holding the handrail with one hand and pointing a gun at them with the other. She wore a distinctive jade collar, but Lestrade might have recognized her anyway: Shan, the de-facto leader of the Yellow Dragon Circus. “You’re the slave they were transferring.”

“It was so nice of them to take me out of your master’s house.” 

Her accent sent alarm bells ringing in Lestrade’s head. “On the phone. It was you.”

She turned her attention to Lord Sherlock. “You’re as clever as they say, Sherlock Holmes.”

“I know you’ve been working with Moriarty,” Lord Sherlock said. He spoke as casually as if they were sitting at a tea table rather than on the back of a speeding train. “He can’t protect you anymore, as I’m sure these Imperial stooges made clear. If he meant to keep you, he wouldn’t have allowed you to be detained in the first place.”

“I am useful to him. He rewards those who serve him well.”

“Tell us where he is. My brother’s minions are well-trained, I assure you.” Lord Sherlock tilted his head towards the corpses in the train behind him. “Much better than this lot. You won’t like what will happen when this train reaches its destination.”

“What he would do to me is worse than anything you could threaten.” Shan released the safety on the gun. The steady, quick motion spoke of long familiarity with firearms.

“It’s alright.” Lestrade spread his hands in a non-threatening gesture. “We’re not going to hurt you. We just want to—“

“You’re not helping,” Lord Sherlock snapped. He stepped closer to Shan. “You know who he is. You’ve spoken with him. That’s why you’re being transferred, so they can torture it out of you. Tell me. You’re a slave—your life has no value to him. He won’t protect you anymore. Tell me!”

“He knows more about the worth of a slave than you do, Mr. Holmes.” Shan turned the gun against her head.

“No, wait--!” Lestrade lunged for her, but the shot rang out before he made it halfway. He caught her dead weight in his arms and lowered her to the floor. His hands wouldn’t let go as he watched her blood leak out onto the platform. 

“No.”

Lestrade looked up to see Lord Sherlock staring off the back of the train at the line unfurling behind them. 

“That doesn’t make any sense. Why would he send me here and not leave another clue?” Lord Sherlock looked down at the body in Lestrade’s arms, then snatched his mobile from his pocket and began scrolling through.

“Sherlock, please. A woman’s just died.”

“Yes. And in there,” Lord Sherlock gestured to the carriage, “are five soldiers, also dead, and by her hand.”

“And that doesn’t bother you. You don’t care?”

“Would caring have helped to save them?”

“No.” Lestrade unclenched his hands from around Shan and rose to his feet. “It never has before.”

“Then I’ll continue not to make that mistake.”

A shrill ring cut through the rush of wind. Then another: a phone. Lord Sherlock crouched next to Shan’s body and patted the dead woman’s pockets until he produced a ringing mobile from her jacket. He stood and answered the call. “Hello?”

“Hello, Lord Holmes.”

Lestrade moved closer to listen. The voice sounded like a woman, posh this time, and near tears.

“Who is this?”

“Clever you, following my little clues,” the woman said haltingly. “Hope things didn’t get too messy on the train.”

“Shan knew your identity, didn’t she?”

“She was in my employ. A most useful helper, in fact, until she became a liability. I don’t like to leave loose ends lying around where just anyone can pick them up.”

Lestrade watched as Lord Sherlock’s hand tightened into a fist at his side. “Where is John?”

“You are careless with your loose ends, Sherlock. Your whole history is littered with them.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Why does anyone do anything? Because I’m bored. I know you get bored, too. We were made for each other.”

“Then talk to me in your own voice.”

“Patience.” A high-pitched buzz sounded: an incoming text. “Here’s your next puzzle. Better hurry.”

The line went dead.

Lord Sherlock selected the new text to view. Lestrade glanced over his shoulder to see a snapshot of part of a city street, including a garden. Lord Sherlock passed the phone to Lestrade and pulled up the browser on his own phone. 

Lestrade squinted at the photo. “Is this London? Hell, it could be anywhere.”

“Not anywhere,” Lord Sherlock muttered. He began walked as he typed, picking his way through the detention carriage.

“Sir? Lord Sherlock! Are we going to do anything about—?” The door slid shut behind Lord Sherlock. “The bodies.” Lestrade spared a glance for Shan, whose sightless eyes stared up at the grey sky. “I’m sorry,” he said, then hurried after Lord Sherlock. 

He caught up with him making his way back through the carriages without a word. Lestrade followed, making apologies to passengers who Lord Sherlock nearly ran into. “Sir?”

“Busy.” 

In the third carriage, Cecil greeted Lord Sherlock with a pull at the brim of his cap. “Everything alright, sir?”

“Yes, fine,” Lord Sherlock said without looking up. “Bit of a mess in the detention carriage. It’ll keep until Waterloo.”

“Very good, sir. There’s a sleeper two carriages up, not booked for a short journey like this. I thought, if you’d like some privacy, sir…” He glanced at Lestrade, then offered Lord Sherlock a broad wink, which he seemed not to notice. 

“Thank you, Cecil.” Lord Sherlock charged through the next two carriages with his eyes fixed on his phone, ignoring Lestrade’s increasingly urgent questions. He rushed through the door marked “private” and into the deserted sleeper, where he at last seemed to remember that Lestrade existed. 

“Give me that.” He snatched Shan’s discarded phone from Lestrade’s hand and began examining it: feeling the case, weighing it in his hand, and stabbing at the buttons. “Useless,” he muttered. “Bloody _useless!_ ” He hurled the phone at the far wall, where it smashed with a pathetic plastic crack. 

“Hey!” Lestrade rushed over to pick up the pieces. “What if he calls back?”

“He won’t.” Lord Sherlock had retrieved his own phone and was staring at the photo he’d presumably forwarded to himself. “This should be enough to go on. “London, almost certainly, judging by the manhole cover. White stone walls. Near a Tube stop with recent construction.”

Lestrade ventured closer, clutching the ruined phone in one hand. “Sherlock, are you alright?”

“This is simple. I can solve this. I should know.”

“You can’t know everything.” Lestrade laid a careful hand on Lord Sherlock’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s lay out what we know. Good old-fashioned detective work might—“

“No, this is all useless!” He shoved his phone into his coat pocket and buried his hands in his hair. “Data! Too much, not enough. How can I make bricks without clay? How can I…” He sank against the wall of the carriage, slid to the floor, and folded up his knees. “My brain won’t work correctly. It’s full of completely irrelevant facts: the rate at which John's hair grows, the gradation of his eye colour in sunlight, and the various sounds he makes during sexual climax - fourteen different varieties at last count. None of it germane to the case. All of this _rubbish_ isn't helping!”

“You miss him.”

“No. Of course not,” Lord Sherlock sniffed. “I need him here, and he is not here. He’s meant to be asking inane questions and drawing erroneous conclusions. He would have told me how brilliant it was when I worked out how Carl Powers was killed.”

“It was brilliant.”

“You’re no good.” Lord Sherlock gave him a withering look. “No one else is, either. I’m not working as efficiently as I should be.”

Lestrade gingerly lowered himself to the floor and settled against the wall next to Lord Sherlock. “You miss him.”

“Is that what this is?” Lord Sherlock rounded on Lestrade with a thunderous look. “He’s done this to me?” He pounded his head back against the wall. “I hope we never find him. He’s destroyed my ability to concentrate.”

“Are you saying you work better when he’s around?”

“Obviously.” Lord Sherlock yanked his hands through his hair, then dropped his head forward onto his knees. 

“I…” Lestrade pursed his lips to hold back unsolicited advice. The train rumbled down the tracks beneath them, and Sherlock remained silent and still. At last, Lestrade sighed. “Do you remember how it felt to get high?”

“Like being on fire,” Lord Sherlock said to the floor. “I could see everything around me so clearly. I was a god.”

“And when you came down?”

“Useless. Everything felt numb and dulled.” Sherlock raked a hand through his hair once more, then sat up. “But of course it only felt that way in comparison.”

“There you have it, then.” Lestrade leaned back against the wall.

Lord Sherlock narrowed his eyes. “Lestrade, are you comparing John to cocaine?”

“I suppose I am, God help me. Only I approve of John.” Lestrade shifted to his knees and faced Lord Sherlock. “Look, you can still do this. You want him back.”

“I need him back,” Lord Sherlock said slowly. “I am better, with him.”

“Right.” Lestrade pushed to his feet with a quiet grunt. He was getting too old to be sitting on floors and rushing around trains. He reached down a hand, which Lord Sherlock ignored in favour of springing to his feet with the grace of a man used to ignoring the inconveniences of physical discomfort. “So, we need data. We need to know where else in London fits the clues. We need a map, or a directory of—“

“No.” Lord Sherlock snatched his phone from his pocket and began to text furiously. “We need the homeless.”  
\--

 

Lord Sherlock still had his head buried in his phone, responding to texts from his mysterious network of informants, no doubt, when the cab pulled up in front of their destination.

Lestrade froze, staring, until the cabbie tapped on the glass. “You getting out here, or what?”

Lord Sherlock thrust a few folded notes at the man before climbing out of the cab. 

Lestrade scrambled after him, staring up at the white stone facade bathed in the orange glow of sunset. “This can’t be the address,” he called. He had only seen the place in darkness, that night he’d followed Sherlock all over Fitzrovia, but he would know it in any light.

“My informants matched the photo with the garden behind. Their access really is unparalleled.” Lord Sherlock swept up the stairs. Lestrade couldn’t follow fast enough to prevent him from ringing the doorbell.   “Sir, this can’t be—This is…” Lestrade stumbled to a stop, hoping Lord Sherlock would realize. 

“What are you squawking about?” Lord Sherlock asked as he peered up at an open window.

“Lucy Harrison.”

Lord Sherlock whirled to face him. 

“This is her flat.”

Lord Sherlock looked up at the front of the building, out at the street, then back at the door. “I must have deleted it.” He pressed the doorbell and held it several seconds.

“The woman on the phone…” Lestrade hadn’t recognized the voice, but then again, he hadn’t heard her speak since she’d testified at his trial. Whoever it was, though, had sounded terrified. “Do you suppose—“

“Yes.” Lord Sherlock tried the door, which opened easily under his touch. He stepped inside, looking carefully around the foyer, probably deducing who had been here last, and when, and what they had been wearing. 

Lestrade brushed past him and charged up the stairs. His feet carried him unerringly up three flights and through the open door there.

The scene that greeted him had featured in many of Lestrade’s nightmares over the years: Lucy Harrison pale and limp on the sofa, blonde hair spread out like a halo. Next to her on the table lay a clear baggie with a sprinkling of white power clinging to the sides. Lestrade rushed to the sofa and crouched to take the woman’s pulse.

Sherlock stormed into the flat. He paused momentarily to take in the scene, then strode around the flat like a man possessed. “No, he was meant to be here. He’s not _here_.”

“A little help, Sherlock?” Lestrade called. 

Lord Sherlock leaned over Lestrade’s shoulder to peer at the woman. “Overdose. He’s recreated the scene. Rather clever, really.” He rushed off again, this time to examine the door handle. 

Lestrade could see traces of white power under the woman’s nose. When he prised up one eyelid, her pupils were hugely dilated. Lord Sherlock seemed to be right about the overdose; everything about the situation hearkened exactly to the night Lestrade had been arrested. When Lestrade leaned in close to listen for breath, the woman’s pulse fluttered weakly under his fingertips. “She’s not dead, Sherlock,” he shouted.

“She will be, soon.”

An upbeat, mechanical tune began to play, startling Lestrade. Lord Sherlock was at his side in a moment, patting down Lucy Harrison’s still form. He dug a ringing mobile out of the back pocket of her jeans and swirled away towards the window. 

“Hello?”

“Evening.”

“John.” Lord Sherlock’s expression shifted into something brittle. He activated the speaker phone and sank down into an over-stuffed chair.

“This is a turn-up.” It sounded like John, yes, but rough, as if his words were being forced out through a juicer. Lestrade tried not to count up the hours he’d been gone, tried not to consider what could have happened in that time. “Bet you never saw this coming.”

“Where are you?”

“You’re having fun, aren’t you? Do you want to keep playing?”

Lord Sherlock’s eyes darted over to where Lestrade knelt next to Lucy Harrison. His knuckles turned white as he gripped the phone harder. “You must know I get bored quite easily.”

“I will never bore you. Come and play.”

The line went dead, and the phone chimed with an incoming text alert. Lord Sherlock held the phone close to his face to examine what he’d been sent.

Lestrade tried to edge closer without removing his hand from where it pressed against the poor girl’s failing pulse. “Sherlock, if that was really John—“

“It was him.” Lord Sherlock bounded to his feet and began pacing the room.

“Moriarty is obviously threatening him somehow.”

“Shut up. Thinking.” Lord Sherlock tugged at his hair with one hand while he paced.

“Remember, Moriarty isn’t playing,” Lestrade said. He couldn’t hope to understand this game, but he knew Lord Sherlock had some peculiar blind spots. “This is some kind of a trap."

“Of course it is.”

“You can’t let him manipulate you.”

“I won’t.” Lord Sherlock halted his pacing, and for a moment Lestrade thought he’d got through, somehow. Then he tucked the phone in his pocket and started for the door.

“What, you can’t just leave!” he protested, but Lord Sherlock seemed to be doing just that. With a quick glance at Lucy, Lestrade pushed to his feet and chased Lord Sherlock into the corridor. “Wait, please!”

Lord Sherlock paused at the top of the stairs. “There’s nothing I can do here. John’s not here.”

“We can’t just leave this poor girl.”

“I have to go.”

“Not alone. Sherlock, wait!” Lestrade grabbed at Lord Sherlock, but the man dodged his grasp and disappeared down the stairs. “Damn it.” Lestrade looked between the stairs and the door to Lucy Harrison’s flat. “Damn him.” He strode back inside, grabbing the cordless phone on the table and dialling before returning to hold Lucy’s hand. “Yes, I have an emergency. I need an ambulance.”  
\--


	4. Chapter 4

Lestrade stared at the cuffs on his hands. It prevented him from accidentally catching the eye of the PC driving the panda. The young man, who’d been the first Met officer on the scene, hadn’t quite known what to make of Lestrade. He’d stumbled over a series of questions as the medics prepared Lucy Harrison for transport. At last, Lestrade had said, “I assume they’ll have some questions for me at the station. You’d best take me in, laddo.” The constable had seemed relieved, but after he scanned Lestrade’s chip, he’d got very quiet. 

When they arrived at New Scotland Yard, the young copper marched him up the stairs with a hand firmly on his arm, as if Lestrade might try to break free at any moment. Lestrade, for his part, kept his head bowed as the familiar sights and sounds of the Yard assaulted him. Though he’d not been here since his arrest, memories of the place tore down the intervening years, flooding Lestrade with the sense of purpose and belonging he’d once felt within these walls.

“Come on, you.” The PC steered him down the corridor towards the holding cell for slaves. As they turned the corner, they nearly collided with a dark-haired detective in a slightly-too-large suit. Lestrade quickly bowed his head and mumbled an apology.

“Forrester, watch where you’re going!”

“Sorry, sir,” the young man replied quickly. 

“Hang on, then.” The detective put a finger under Lestrade’s chin and tipped his head up until Lestrade met his widening eyes. 

Lestrade immediately recognized DI Gregson. The man had acquired a few more grey hairs in the intervening years, but the stubborn set of his jaw was the same as ever. 

“Lestrade?” He turned to the young constable, who seemed to be looking around for an escape. “What’s all this, Forrester?”

“Caught in a flat in Fitzrovia, with a woman overdosed on drugs.” Forrester brandished a clipboard of hastily-filled-in paperwork. “He’s under on a drugs charge in the first place, so I thought… Well, his chip checks out, but... his owner.”

“Yes?” Gregson prompted.

Forrester lowered his voice to a theatrical whisper. “It’s Lord Mycroft Holmes, sir.”

“I see.” Gregson’s eyes slid over to Lestrade, considering. “I’ll take him from here.”

“Thanks very much, sir.” Forrester, clearly relieved, passed over the clipboard and hared off.

Gregson led the way, though Lestrade remembered every turning through the labyrinthine corridors of the Yard. Once they reached a deserted interrogation room, Gregson peered up and down the hallway before waving Lestrade inside. He closed the door and pulled down the blinds before turning to Lestrade. “What the bloody hell are you doing back in London?”

“I’m assisting Lord Holmes with an investigation,” Lestrade said with his head bowed respectfully.

“You belong to the bleedin’ Lord of Westminster and points north?” Gregson slumped into a chair at the room’s only table.

“Yes.” Lestrade slid into the seat across from yes. “Have done since I left here.”

“So why aren’t you with him? What’s this about an overdose?”

“It’s Lucy Harrison, the same woman as before.” When suspicion marred Gregson’s face, Lestrade hurried to explain. “It’s part of the investigation Lord Sherlock is working on.”

“He would be mixed up in all this.” Gregson rubbed his fingers across his forehead, as if fighting a burgeoning headache. “Didn’t you learn your lesson the first time?”

“Listen, please. This criminal Lord Holmes is chasing—he knows more than any man could possibly know. He recreated the scene, that night I—”

“You know how insane this sounds, yeah?” Gregson broke in. “Why would he do that? Why would anyone go to the trouble?”

“I know it sounds mad.” Lestrade leaned forward, resting his cuffed hands on the table. “Listen, Gregson.” He bit back words that threatened to come too freely here in his old domain, and schooled himself into an attitude more appropriate to his station. “Sir. I have to get after him. Sherlock—Lord Holmes, I mean—is in danger. Just one phone call.”

Gregson hesitated, then shook his head. “I can’t. You know I can’t. Slaves are supposed to wait until their masters are notified.”

“I know the rules.” Lestrade remembered; he didn’t need to be reminded that he lacked the rights a citizen had. “But this is a man’s life we’re talking about. Isn’t there something you can—“

“The law’s the law, Lestrade.” Gregson stood, his metal chair scraping noisily against the concrete floor. “I can’t take a chance helping someone like you.”

“A slave, you mean.” Lestrade jumped to his feet and followed Gregson to the door, which Gregson wrenched open.

“A traitor,” Gregson hissed. 

“Detective Inspector.”

Both men turned at once to see Lord Mycroft Holmes standing in the corridor in a three-piece suit, holding an umbrella, and, despite the late hour, looking for all the world like he’d just stepped out of his office for a stroll. 

Gregson stared for a long moment, probably wondering, as Lestrade was, why Lord Mycroft was here, how he’d got in unaccompanied, and what he intended to do. 

“I believe you have something of mine,” Lord Mycroft said at last.

“Um, yes, Lord Holmes. I, uh…” He glanced back at Lestrade. “We haven’t processed him yet. We’ll need to do some questioning.”

“That’s not necessary.” Lord Mycroft offered a terrifyingly benign smile.

“Sir, when my officer found him—“

“I’m well aware of what you found, Inspector Gregson. I can give you every assurance that Gregory was not responsible for young Ms. Harrison’s condition. He’ll be returning with me. If you need any further information, you’ll need to make arrangements through my staff.”

Gregson looked between Lord Mycroft and Lestrade, then down at his paperwork, and back at Lord Mycroft. “But, Lord Holmes—“

“Yes?” Lord Mycroft raised an eyebrow.

Gregson came at last to the obvious conclusion, and his shoulders slumped in defeat. “Nothing, sir. Sorry for the inconvenience, sir.”

Lestrade held out his cuffed hands. Gregson unlocked them without a word, and did not look at Lord Mycroft again. 

No one spoke to them or acknowledged them as Lestrade followed Lord Mycroft out the way he’d come, remaining the proper distance behind his owner. As soon as they cleared the doors of New Scotland Yard, though, Lestrade ventured close enough to speak quietly. “Lord Sherlock’s run off on his own. Moriarty’s been sending him on some mad scavenger hunt. He got the last clue and hared off.”

“Tell me what you know. We’ll find him.” Lord Mycroft stopped next to his car, where a uniformed slave held open the door. “And Gregory. I wanted to say—“

“There’s no time, sir,” Lestrade said quickly. He didn’t want Lord Mycroft to spend a moment on anything related to Lestrade now, not when the clock was ticking for John and Lord Sherlock.

“Of course.” Lord Mycroft stiffened his spine and nodded once, sharply. “Carry on.”  
\--

 

John caught sight of movement at the tree line. His limbs had gone stiff from the long wait in the cold, so he tried to stretch unobtrusively, in case the time for action came soon. He couldn’t tell for certain, even with the bright moonlight reflecting off the lake, but he thought he could make out the figure of a man approaching through the trees.

“Steady,” Moran warned. The muzzle of his Browning jabbed into John’s back, above where his hands were tied. “Don’t go playing the hero, now.”

When Sherlock stepped into view John felt part of himself—the part that had been firmly convinced that Sherlock wouldn’t show—awake with a warm swell of hope, while the rest of him was fully occupied with mental screams of, _”Run, you mad wanker.”_

Sherlock took careful stock of the glassy lake and its seemingly deserted environs. He stepped to the edge of the water and called into the darkness, “Brought you a little welcome back present.” He held up a small, thin item, perhaps a keychain or a memory stick. He turned in a slow circle while he spoke. “This is what all the fuss is about at the banquet, yes? All your careful plans. Your little breadcrumb trail, all leading me here. I have been looking so forward to seeing you in person.”

An exaggeratedly deferential voice rang out from the trees. “The pleasure’s all mine, sir.”

Moriarty swung out from behind a tree on Sherlock’s right. Dressed in a dark blue suit with his hair slicked back, he was barely recognizable as the shy young man from Lord Mycroft’s stable of personal slaves. Of course, Sherlock, with his inordinate powers of observation, recognized him immediately. “Jim, is it?”

“Jim Moriarty. Hiiii.”

From his hiding place, John couldn’t be certain, but he thought he saw Sherlock’s mouth twitch at Moriarty’s playful tone, though whether in disgust or amusement he couldn’t say. Sherlock raked his eyes up and down Moriarty, doubtless working to assemble what he knew of him from his time in Mycroft’s house. “You’ve come up in the world.”

“Was never really down.” Moriarty tucked his hands into his trouser pockets and strolled towards Sherlock. “Is that a SIG Sauer L105A1 in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”

“Both.” Sherlock drew John’s gun from his pocket and levelled it at Moriarty. 

“Does he know how to use that?” Moran hissed. John felt the Browning dig harder into his back. 

“I’ve never seen him shoot,” John replied, which was not a lie. Though he had no idea about Sherlock’s firearm experience aside from his appalling lack of gun safety, John doubted Sherlock was a match for a trained killer like Moran. No, if it came to a fight, John would need to get his hands on a gun.

“Like the venue?” Moriarty stopped ten paces or so from Sherlock and looked out at the smooth surface of the lake.

“It’s a nice touch. The place where you killed Carl Powers. Conveniently located, too. Tell me, how did you ensure my brother wouldn’t disturb us?” Sherlock’s whole body recoiled as the answer hit him. “Ah, Lestrade. You knew he’d stay at Lucy Harrison’s flat and be taken into custody. Mycroft would want to retrieve him personally.”

“People do get so sentimental about their pets,” Moriarty said with a grimace. “You seem to have grown quite fond of yours.”

“Where is he?” Sherlock asked.

“It’s rather rude, Sherlock, making it all about him when you and I have only just met properly.” Moriarty arranged his features into an exaggerated pout. “A man might think you don’t care.”

Sherlock pulled back the safety on the Sig and gripped the gun with both hands. “Where is he?” John hadn’t been sure, before, why Sherlock had come, but his joyful curiosity about Moriarty—the delight of unravelling a puzzle—was nowhere in evidence. This wasn’t a game to him, not anymore, John realized. 

Moriarty didn’t flinch at Sherlock’s implied threat, but behind John, Moran shifted to get a better view. “I’ve given you a glimpse, just a tiny peek at what I do,” Moriarty said. “Out there in the big, bad world, poking holes in the fabric of the Empire.”

“Child’s play.”

“I noticed you didn’t bother to set things to rights as you followed my little clues. No cleaning up messes for Lord Sherlock Holmes. You’re very single-minded when you’re on a case. Having too much fun to worry about the little things, little people.”

“Take it.” Sherlock stepped forward and held out the memory stick.

“Huh?” Jim leaned in to investigate. “Oh, that. Enough diplomatic napalm to start three wars.” He plucked the stick out of Sherlock’s hands and brought it to his lips to kiss. “Boring!” With a flick of his wrist, he tossed it into the lake, where it sank with barely a ripple. “I have a better prize in mind. Where’s our lost puppy?”

“That’s your cue. Remember to behave.” Moran tugged at the end of a rope, freeing John from his bonds, then prodded the muzzle of the Browning against John’s back once more. “Move.”

John flexed his hands to get the feeling back into them as he picked his way through the shadows of the trees, to emerge onto the grassy verge at the edge of the lake.

Sherlock’s attention snapped to him. From the corner of his eye, John could see Moran in his hiding place, not ten feet away, his gun unfailingly aimed at John. 

“Evening.” John raised his voice to carry along the shore to where Sherlock and Jim stood.

“Have you missed him, your pet?” Moriarty glided closer to John, cocking his head as considering. “I can see why you like him. He’s certainly got… spirit.”

“You all right?” Sherlock called.

“You can talk, Johnny-boy.” Moriarty stepped close enough to tap John gently on the nose with one elegant finger. “Go on.”

John looked to Sherlock and nodded once, sharply.

“See, I’ve barely touched him,” Moriarty called over his shoulder as he brushed his fingers across John’s cheek. “I bet you’ve been worried sick. Bad dog, making your master fret.” He waggled a finger in John’s face, which John resisted the urge to bite, then turned on his heel to stalk back towards Sherlock. “Now, you see. I can play nice. I’ve brought him back to you safe and sound, maybe just slightly worse for the wear, but he was no great shakes to begin with, was he? Now that’s sorted, the two of us can hold a conversation like two reasonable people.”

“Is this how you get my attention?” Sherlock asked. “People have died.”

“That’s what people _do_.” Moriarty screamed the last word, face contorting into a rictus of insane rage. The next instant, he was all silky smiles once more. He brushed his hands down the front of his jacket as if smoothing out his composure. “I wanted to do this differently, I really did. If you had known what you were looking at, really _observed_ , you would have picked me instead of him. Oh, we would have had a good time. I would have given you the ride of your life.”

A movement caught John’s eye, and he dared a glance away to see Moran’s hand flexing on the grip of his Browning. His head was tilted slightly to the side, listening. John quickly returned his attention to Sherlock and Moriarty, but the seed of a plan began to grow in his mind.

“It’s been fun, watching you dance, but Daddy’s had enough now!” Moriarty said, his voice dancing up to high, child-like registers. “I think we can both agree you want something more.”

“And what is that?”

“An equal.” Moriarty prowled closer to Sherlock. “You don’t want a slave that has to do what you say. You don’t want someone to bow and scrape to you while you run errands for your brother and make sure the Empress’s will is done.”

“You seem to know so much about it, I’m certain you’ve uncovered my heart’s desire.” Sherlock stepped back as Moriarty approached, never lowing the Sig.

“You want me.” Quickly, Moriarty’s voice took on a dangerously sharp edge. “Don’t you _dare_ deny it. You’ve had such fun with my puzzles. I’ve been watching you. It’s a rush, isn’t it, having lives in your hands? The two of us together, imagine it. We could bring down empires.”

John pitched his voice low, so it wouldn’t attract Moriarty or Sherlock’s attention. “Sounds like he’s found a playmate he likes better than you.”

“Quiet,” Moran hissed.

“You won’t convince me that you’re not bored with this life. I know, honey. I’ve tried it all.” Moriarty sidled closer, Sherlock countered him, and the two began to move in opposition, like stars caught in each other’s gravitational pull. “Parties and entertainments, frightfully dull politics and pedestrian bedmates. There’s no chase, no challenge in any of it, is there?”

“That’s you he’s talking about,” John said quietly.

“Shut up.” Moran steadied his grip on the Browning.

“I manage to keep myself amused,” Sherlock answered.

“And that is the problem. You are _wasting_ yourself with all that. With _him_.” Moriarty snarled in John’s direction, but his voice softened when he addressed Sherlock. “I understand, believe me I do. It gets lonely, it gets boring, so you settle for whatever’s nearby, but it doesn’t satisfy. There will always be that darkness, that hole inside that nothing can fill.” Sherlock’s eyes drifted to John.

John risked a surreptitious glance at Moran and found him leaning out from behind his tree, eyes fixed on Moriarty. “Look at the two of them,” John said. “Jim looks like he’d be up for it right now. Should we give them some privacy?”

“We’re the only two in the whole world,” Moriarty cooed. “Look at me.” When Sherlock stayed focused on John, Moriarty screamed, “Look at me!” Slowly, Sherlock’s eyes slid back to Moriarty. “What is going on in that pretty little head of yours?”

“No one’s ever got close to you, have they?” Sherlock sounded almost sad.

“No. And no one ever will.”

“I reckoned I wasn’t coming out of this alive, but just now I wouldn’t lay odds on you, either,” John whispered to Moran.

“Except me,” Sherlock said slowly. 

“You’ve come the closest. But you don’t appreciate what I’m offering.” Moriarty drew his hands out of his pockets and spread his arms. “You could search your whole life and never find one like me.”

“That’s alright,” Sherlock said with exaggerated casualness. “I’m not really in the market.”

“Did he tell you this is what he wanted with Sherlock?” John asked. Moran didn’t take his eyes off Moriarty. “I suppose not. Wouldn’t want to give you advance notice you were being replaced.”

Moriarty stretched his neck to the side, then focused again on Sherlock. “Do you know what happens if you don’t come with me, Sherlock. To you?”

“Oh let me guess,” Sherlock sighed. “I get killed.”

“Kill you?” Moriarty’s lip curled in disgust. “No, don’t be obvious. I’d no sooner destroy you than I’d throw black paint on a Vermeer.”

“You’d deface a Vermeer in a second.”

“Okay, yeah, I would.” Moriarty shrugged. “But you. You’re the only one that does it for me.” He glided forward, heedless of Sherlock’s tightening grip on the Sig. “And I will have you.” He darted forward with a shout, sending Sherlock stumbling backwards.

John should be there. He should be by Sherlock’s side. If he were closer, if Sherlock would just _listen_ to him— “Sherlock, down!” John screamed.

Moran leapt out from behind the tree, pivoted neatly and levelled his gun down the shore. Sherlock turned to John slowly, much too slowly. John was already moving. He threw himself at Moran as the Browning stayed steady. The retort of a gunshot deafened John, and another followed hard on its heels the moment before he slammed into Moran’s solid bulk. 

Moran stumbled, and John delivered a swift jab to Moran’s injured shoulder. With a startled shout, Moran fumbled the Browning. John’s fingers closed around the grip. With one swift move, he tore it out of Moran’s grasp and flung it with all his strength. He heard a plop as it hit the lake’s surface. 

With a curse, Moran broke away from John to race through the trees.

A scream of mindless fury carried across the lake. John turned to see Moriarty kneeling on the ground next to a fallen figure. 

“Sherlock.” John’s feet carried him forward of their own volition. As he began to run, Moran burst out of the trees and dragged Moriarty to his feet, cursing and struggling. Bursts of red stained the white front of Moriarty’s dress shirt, a bloody abstract. In the dark, John couldn’t tell if the man was injured, or if the blood wasn’t his. 

By the time John dropped to his knees beside Sherlock, Moran had hauled his unwilling captive as far as the tree line. John snatched the Sig from where it lay next to Sherlock’s hand and took his aim. 

Moran stilled with his arm around a struggling Jim. “I didn’t miss,” he shouted.

John looked down to see blood staining Sherlock’s shirt, low on his left side, as far from vital organs and major arteries as a serious gunshot wound could be. When John looked up, Moran was hauling Moriarty away into the night.

John safety-ed the Sig and tucked it into the back of his waistband. “Don’t move. Don’t move.” John pressed the heel of his hand against the hole in Sherlock’s side before looking to see if he’d lost consciousness. 

Sherlock’s pale eyes fixed on his with frightening intensity. “You knew Moran might shoot me.”

“I guessed he had a jealous streak, yeah. It happened to come in handy.” John scanned Sherlock for other damage, but didn’t see any more blood. “Try not to talk.”

Sherlock squinted at John as if he’d never seen him before. “Why did you stay? Moriarty removed your chip. You could run.”

John shook his head. The thought hadn’t crossed his mind. He couldn’t imagine running from Sherlock, who’d brought light to dark places John hadn’t even realized he’d concealed. Letting the man die who’d brought you back to life would be poor form. But he couldn’t tell Sherlock that. Instead, he dredged up a weak smile. “Then who’d patch you up after you infuriate people into shooting you? Where’s your phone?”

John dug the mobile out of Sherlock’s jacket pocket with one hand while keeping pressure on the wound. “Damn,” he said as he read the display. “No bloody signal.” He tossed the phone aside before giving Sherlock his full attention.

Sherlock’s eyes were halfway closed; his breathing had become fast and shallow. “Stay with me, Sherlock. Please tell me you told someone you were coming here. Anyone.”

“Who would I tell?” Sherlock wheezed. “You were already here.”

“Alright.” John nodded shakily. “Alright. Hold on.” He braced a hand on Sherlock’s shoulder and rolled him slightly. He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding when he saw a clean exit wound, bleeding freely. “Went right through. Easy. Keep your eyes open,” he admonished when Sherlock’s focus started to drift. “Don’t you dare pass out on me.” Sherlock nodded his agreement. Bedside manner for field medicine was well-suited to dealing with Sherlock, it seemed.

John stripped Sherlock’s shirt off as efficiently as he could one-handed. “It’s a good job no one’s here to see me taking your clothes off in the woods at night. People might talk.” 

“People do little else.” Sherlock’s chuckle cut off in an agonized gasp.

“Listen. Listen to me. Hold this here.” John tore off a strip of Sherlock’s shirt, folded it up, and laid it over the wound before guiding Sherlock’s hand into place. “Press hard. Don’t you dare let go.”

“I think you’re…enjoying the chance…to tell me what to do…” Sherlock said in between laboured breaths.

Being aware enough to quip was a good sign. John huffed out a laugh. “Well, as a slave, I’m not technically meant to practise medicine.” John set about tearing the rest of Sherlock’s shirt into strips. “I could stop, if you like.”

“No, by all means, continue. I give you permission.” Sherlock waved magnanimously. 

“Keep that pressure on, I mean it.” John began to knot two strips together. “If you die, I imagine I’ll be in even worse trouble with the authorities.”

“They’re not going to hurt you.” Sherlock clutched at John’s arm, suddenly serious. “No one’s going to hurt you. You’re mine.”

“That’s why you came after me.” Something bitter welled in John’s throat as he considered that. He nudged Sherlock over to thread the fabric strip around him. “Because I’m your property.”

“Yes. And because I can’t conceive of a life without you in it.” Sherlock fixed his gaze somewhere past John’s ear. “I told Lestrade. I’m better with you.”

“Right.” The lump in John’s throat melted into nothing. “Right.” He squeezed his hand on Sherlock’s shoulder, but frowned when Sherlock winced. “You won’t be better than anything if we don’t get the bleeding stopped.” John cinched the strip tight over his makeshift bandage, then began wrapping another around Sherlock. 

After a moment, Sherlock looked sharply to the left, then the right. “John, does shock cause auditory hallucinations?”

“No. Why?”

“I thought I heard fluttering.”

“What, like angel wings?” John checked the makeshift bandages, but there wasn’t too much blood, not yet, not enough to give up hope. “Do not do this to me, Sherlock Holmes, I swear—“

“Please, John.” Only Sherlock could manage to pin John with a derisive glare while lying on a forest floor, bleeding from a bullet wound. “I hardly think angels would have any interest in me. It sounds more like—“

“A helicopter.” John whirled around to see a bright spotlight shining down from the sky, racing towards the lake. He turned back to his patient, saw blood on his hands. The rotors were getting louder.

“John.” A voice called to him from somewhere very distant. He could smell sand and death. “John, it’s alright.”

John found himself bent over his patient, shielding him from incoming fire. He blinked when he recognized Sherlock. 

“John, stay with me.” Sherlock’s right hand was wrapped around the back of John’s neck where his collar should be. “Come back.”

“That’s meant to be my line.” John let out a shuddery breath as his awareness of the world returned to him.

“I’m with you.” Sherlock made no move to release his hold on John. “I’m here.”

The helicopter caught them in its beam as John finished tying the last cloth strip around Sherlock. It hovered above them for a moment, before descending into a grassy area between the trees and the water. Upon touchdown, it disgorged a trio of armed guards in the blue uniform of Lord Mycroft’s household who spread out into the trees, followed by two uniformed paramedics. 

To John’s surprise, they waited for his orders before taking over Sherlock’s care. John supervised the transfer of Sherlock onto a stretcher. No one objected when John walked with them, hand held fast by Sherlock, and boarded the helicopter.

Inside, Lestrade sat next to the door, speaking into a headset. “They’re loading him in now. Yes, sir.”

“We have you to thank for this daring rescue, I assume,” John shouted over the noise of the rotors. 

“Mostly Lord Mycroft, but I’m the messenger.” Lestrade pulled off his headset and dropped down next to John as the helicopter ascended. “Sorry we couldn’t make it sooner. Took me longer to work out the location than it did Sherlock. You alright?”

“I will be. What happened to your collar?” 

Lestrade’s face fell, and he shook his head quickly. “Long story.”

John glanced out the window to see the house and grounds falling away behind them. “Where we going?”

“Imperial Hospital. Things being as they are at the house, it’s safer this way.” Lestrade nodded towards Sherlock. “How is he?”

“He is right here, and not dead yet,” Sherlock called from behind his oxygen mask.

“Please try not to speak, sir,” one of the paramedics admonished.

“Only John can give me orders,” Sherlock snapped. “Stop fiddling.”

“Let them fiddle, Sherlock.” John folded his hand over Sherlock’s. The second paramedic offered John a grateful smile as she started an IV. “This is serious.”

“Not as serious as it might have been,” Lestrade said with a meaningful look to Sherlock, which was received with an eyeroll.

“Though it’s a pretty crap evening when suffering a gunshot wound is one of the more appealing possible outcomes,” John pointed out.

“I did calculate nineteen less satisfactory outcomes,” Sherlock said.

“Sir,” the paramedic said. “You really should be still.”

Sherlock opened his mouth to answer back, but John leaned in and pressed his lips to Sherlock’s, stopping any more protests.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your patience as I worked to get this baby finished. There will be at least one more installment in this universe, perhaps two, at some point in the coming months.


End file.
